Keynotes 

Dr. Giovanni Coco
Associate Professor in the School of Environment
University of Auckland

“Prediction” in coastal systems: a perspective from the antipodes
There is a need for robust and reliable predictions of coastal morphodynamics and, when dealing with climatic effects, the horizon of the predictions is the end of the century. This is an incredibly challenging task posing questions on what we mean with “robust and reliable predictions” and how the idea of deterministic predictions only paves the way to misunderstanding. In my presentation, rather than the presenting the advances in a specific sector of research, I would like to discuss “what we know that we do not know” and how it affects predictions. Specifically how do we deal with unknown drivers? How do we deal with processes we do not fully know how to model? I will discuss the need of “going stochastic” and to explore different ways forward.

Biography
Dr. Giovanni Coco is associate professor in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has obtained his PhD from Plymouth University and has subsequently worked at Scripps Institute of Oceanography (USA), at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (New Zealand) and at IH Cantabria/University of Cantabria (Spain). His scientific activity is primarily related to the study of nearshore morphodynamics, coastal hazards, pattern formation and interactions between physical and biological processes. The approach is based on a combination of numerical modeling, field and laboratory observations, and addresses system evolution over timescales ranging from seconds to millenia.  More recently, he has focused on nonlinear techniques for data analysis (genetic algorithms, artificial neural networks) applying them to a variety of bio-geophysical problems.

 

Dr. Jennifer L. Irish 
Professor of Coastal Engineering and Associate Director of the Center for Coastal Studies
Virginia Tech

Recent Advances and Future Challenges in Coastal Storm Inundation
Among the most devastating of natural disasters are those emanating from coastal inundation by tropical cyclones. For example, in 2013 Typhoon Haiyan claimed more than 7,000 lives in the Philippines, while in 2017 the record-breaking U.S. hurricane season caused 278B USD in damage. The importance of reliable storm inundation hazard characterization continues to grow as these disasters become more extreme and more prevalent. The devastation wreaked by the moderate strength but very large Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was the catalyst for major advances in the understanding of storm surge dynamics and probabilistic hazard characterization. Prompted by unexpectedly costly compound rain-surge flooding arising from recent events such as Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and the reality of permanent inundation and associated coastal change induced by sea-level rise, the coastal science and engineering community is once again poised to attain major advances in the understanding of coastal inundation—this time equipped with novel data science tools. This keynote will address recent advances and future challenges associated with coastal storm inundation dynamics and associated hazard characterization.

 

Ir. A.G. (Annemieke) Nijhof MBA
Managing director Deltares


Annemieke Nijhof will present from her own experience with the development of the Sand Motor. How did it come into existence? She will highlight the design choices for this landmark coastal development and relate expectations to the context at that time. Moreover, she will elaborate on how the Sand Motor contributes to a safe and sustainable future of the Netherlands.

Biography
Annemieke Nijhof has been working on technical and societal issues concerning the natural environment for 30 years. She was trained as a chemical engineer and completed an MBA at TSM Business School. She was Executive Woman of the Year 2015 for her persistent commitment to diversity and inclusion in organizations. Annemieke's ambition is to connect scientific progress to societal challenges. 

Since October 2020, she has been Managing Director of the knowledge institute Deltares. Before that, she worked for the Dutch government at various ministries, including as Director-General at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. At engineering firm Tauw, Annemieke was responsible for all (inter)national business units. She is also a supervisor and advisor to knowledge institutions, the government, NGOs and the financial sector. In 2019, Annemieke became the figurehead of Top Sector Water and Maritime, a public-private collaboration between government, businesses and knowledge institutes in the Netherlands, and Chair of the Board of the Netherlands Water Partnership. 

In her work at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Annemieke was also involved in the inception of the Sand Motor. She was engaged in drafting the policies and guiding the decision-making process. This iconic project changed our approach towards sand nourishments and acted as a catalyst for knowledge development and innovation. 
 

Dr. Nadia Senechal
Head of the School of Earth Sciences and Environment
Bordeaux University

Mastering Complexity through Simplification: a challenge for coastal research
Coastal dynamic is inherently complex and understanding the processes that drive it has been a goal for many decades for researches all around the world and is still challenging them. And yet other challenges lie ahead since now research is not only focusing on how nature is shaping our coast, now and in the future but also how humans do.  Thus, coastal scientists are often torn between providing easy to use parametric/simplified models and capturing the complexity of the processes. This is a challenging topic that plays an important role in translating our fundamental research into something more pragmatic but also accurate. In this keynote, two specific challenges will be addressed to initiate a brainstorming on how mastering complexity through simplification in coastal dynamics: shoreline dynamic and runup.

Biography 
Nadia obtained her first MEngSc (Coastal Engineering and Offshore Engineering) at the University of Toulon-Var, France in 1999, and then she obtained a second Msc (Oceanography and Paleo-Oceanography) in 2000 and her PhD in 2003 at Bordeaux University, France. In 2004 she got a position as Associate Professor at Bordeaux University and has been promoted full-time Professor in 2018. Since January 2020 she is the head of the School of Earth Sciences and Environment at Bordeaux University. In 2016 she joined the Committee of Women in Coastal Geoscience & Engineering. 

She carries out her research within the METHYS team in Bordeaux (EPOC laboratory). The adopted scientific approach is largely based on experimental approaches (field measurements and observations) and can employ innovative techniques in remote sensing. In 2008 she was in charge of the Truc Vert -ECORS field experiment what was at this time the largest field experiment ever ran in Europe. This field experiment was designed to measure beach morphodynamics under highly energetic conditions and involved 19 partners and up to 120 persons.  Her current scientific activity strongly focuses on open beaches, their response to energetic events and the inter-connections between the human and natural dimensions of coasts.