CDT-SIS-515: Greening the Thames Flood Defence Infrastructure

There is increasing interest in working with nature approaches for flood management both in coastal and inland locations. It is increasingly recognised that nature can provide important beneficial functions that lower the need for hard infrastructure investment and maintenance costs. However, realising such benefits is challenging as our understanding of natural processes and their functioning, compared to the behaviour of a hard structure such as a dike, is rather limited. This is particularly true in urban areas where space is limited, and in these cases, the goal is to employ hybrid approaches which enhance hard defences with nature-based approaches.

The area of London and the Thames Estuary is a hotspot for coastal flooding, containing half the asset value in the UK coastal flood plain. This area is also well protected with the highest standard of defences in the UK and a detailed plan called ‘the Thames Estuary 2100 Plan’ to maintain and enhance these defences through the 21st century as extreme conditions increase with mean sea-level rise. Within these efforts, there is strong interest in greening the Thames flood defence infrastructure and understanding the resulting benefits in terms of lower capital costs, lower maintenance costs and other benefits as they exist.

This project aims to provide guidance on these issues relevant to the Thames defences. It will analyse the full range of options for ‘Greening the Thames Flood Defence Infrastructure’ linking these to constraints on the Environment Agency, who operate these defences. From these options a small set of approaches will be selected and analysed in more detail again in collaboration with Environment Agency and their contractors. This will aim to quantify the greening options so that they can be more readily considered in project appraisal and applied where appropriate.

The ideal candidate will be a BEng/MEng civil engineer or a numerate BSc/MSc physical graduate. This project will be conducted in close collaboration with the Environment Agency, especially their Thames Estuary 2100 team. The successful candidate will spend time with this team. The precise details will be defined during the course of the project.

If you wish to discuss any details of the project informally, please contact Prof. Robert J. Nicholls Eneregy and Climate Change, Email: [Email Address Removed], Tel: +44 (0) 2380 59 4139.

Please be aware that the academic selectors review applications as soon as they are received so please make sure to submit your application for consideration as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

This project is being run in participation with the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Infrastructure Systems (View Website). For details of our 4 Year PhD programme and further projects, please see http://www.cdt-sis.soton.ac.uk/