Coastal and Urban Risk & Resilience
The Coastal and Urban Risk & Resilience department (CURR) supports coastal and urban areas in adapting to and mitigating the effects of water-related hazards and climate change. It provides education, scientific insights and capacity development to support risk quantification and resilience-building to contribute to this goal. The department uses an integrated risk management approach that spans across disciplines, spatio-temporal scales and technological complexity levels. The department works with partners on real-life projects and programs throughout the world.
Aims and ambitions
CURR contributes to the knowledge and capacity base in the emerging field of climate risk and management. The department focuses on the assessment and management of coastal and urban risk and resilience. It applies an integrated approach to the study of coastal and urban systems. Its focus areas include coastal erosion and coastal flood hazards as well as risks and adaptation. In the study of urban systems, it focuses on water-sensitive design and planning for adaptation to climate change effects. Coastal and urban systems are interconnected and linked through natural processes and human activities on the local scale, the catchment or delta scale and the global scale.
Climate change resilience and adaptation for coastal and urban areas
The department’s research focuses on the following research questions:
- How can we increase present-day and future resilience of coasts and urban areas, considering the uncertainties associated with climate change, human activities and other drivers? What are the ways in which resilience can be used as a driver for sustainable development and through which pathways can we achieve this target?
- How will climate change impact coasts and urban areas and how can we quantify such impacts? What quantitative tools and approaches do we need to develop to enable a shift from scenario-based decision making to risk-informed decision making?
- How can we unlock the economic potential of multifunctional (green) infrastructure in the coastal zone and in urban areas? How can the economic value of the benefits they bring be determined and recognized? What role could green infrastructure play in integrating coastal zone development and urban functions?
Department research strives to:
- Develop tailored models and frameworks for building resilience in coastal zones and urban areas
- Foster integration of knowledge and capacity development (including education) and multidisciplinarity
- Work through partnerships, such as end-users, research institutes, government agencies, academia, international financial institutions and non-governmental organizations
- Engage in on-the-ground projects
CURR works with a broad range of partners including the Dutch government, the World Bank and other international banks. It strives to make a long-term impact and to co-create and co-execute strategies with partners.
Models and projection tools
The CURR department is at the forefront of developing models and projection tools, in house and in active collaboration with partners.
Global projections of extreme sea levels for different global warming levels
Global projections of shoreline change for different emission scenarios
ShorelineS model
ShorelineS model is an efficient free-form coastal planform model to analyse and predict coastline changes
XBeach model
XBeach model is the open-source, physics-based state-of-the-art in predicting hurricane impacts on sandy dune and barrier coasts, which has developed into a de facto worldwide standard.
G-SMIC model
G-SMIC model is a physics based, reduced complexity model to derive probabilistic 100-year projections of inlet-interrupted coasts that considers the catchment-estuary-coast system holistically
Probabilistic Coastline Recession
Probabilistic Coastline Recession model is a physics based, multi-scale, reduced complexity model to derive probabilistic 100-year projections of coastline change on open uninterrupted coasts
Coastal Futures
Coastal Futures is an open source online viewer that brings together all the coastal climatic impact-driver data sets used in the IPCC AR6 assessment, and more.
People in this department
Yasmin Alazaiza
Affiliate Researcher
Sebrian Beselly
Visiting guest
Gerald Corzo Perez
Associate Professor of Hydroinformatics
Ali Dastgheib
Associate Professor of Coastal Engineering and Port Development
Ap van Dongeren
Associate Professor in Coastal Hazards
Trang Duong
Senior Lecturer in Coastal Numerical Modelling
Alvaro Milho Semedo
Associate Professor of Coastal Oceanography
Khin Nawarat
PhD Candidate
Assela Pathirana
Associate Professor in Water Infrastructure Asset Management
Mohan Radhakrishnan
Affiliate Researcher
Rosh Ranasinghe
Professor of Climate Change Impacts & Coastal Risk
Johan Reyns
Lecturer/Researcher in Coastal Morphodynamics