Loughborough University has recently advertised for a PhD opportunity: "Interacting UK Hazards - Impacts and Origins". It's great to see the field and funding is starting to get on board with multiple and interacting natural hazards!
Interacting UK Hazards – Impacts and Origins
Dr John Hillier, Geography, Loughborough
Dr Gregor Leckebusch, School GEES, Birmingham
Dr Kate Royse, British Geological Survey
Summary:
An excellent, inquisitive and highly-numerate student is sought to combine novel and industry-based GIS methods (i.e., catastrophe modelling) to understand the origins and impacts of interacting hazards as they afflict the UK.
Background:
The UK is affected by several natural hazards (e.g., floods in 2007). These are currently considered independently, but they could interact. A pilot study by the supervisors, using a novel way of examining past data, has robustly shown that interactions can alter likely ‘worst case’ losses by ~£50 million. This is of immediate interest to insurance companies and with much potential to contribute to policy making about the resilience of the UK as climate changes.
Objectives & Methodology:
A core of the work is low risk, building directly upon the pilot study, but scope exists for a student to innovate and excel. A key objective is to understand the origin of the interaction between shrink-swell subsidence losses for clay soils and other risks. This will be done by relating loss data (Zurich Insurance) to recorded weather patterns and developing published work linking subsidence and climate using British Geological Survey (BGS) data (e.g., GeoSure). The strength of interaction between physical processes required to explain the observed impacts will be quantified by generating catastrophe models [e.g., Donat & Leckebusch, 2011; Royse & Hillier In Press] (new QuickCat code). ‘Catastrophe modelling’ is relatively little used in academia, giving potential for exciting developments, and the last stage of this project is a new use for the technique.
Employability:
A secondment to Zurich Insurance Plc. (3-6 months) has been negotiated, and engagement with the BGS is anticipated. Catastrophe modelling underpins all financial risk assessment, and is becoming critical in Disaster Risk Reduction and humanitarian efforts, ideally placing the student for a range of careers. Training will include fieldwork, integrated modelling, GIS, and relevant programming giving the student skills identified as ‘most wanted’ for environmental jobs; ‘modelling’, ‘multi-disciplinarity’, ‘risk and uncertainty’.
