IHE Delft alumnus awarded prestigious prize for PhD thesis on modelling human-flood interactions

The thesis, titled “Modelling Human-Flood Interactions – A coupled flood-agent-institution modelling framework for long-term flood risk management” introduces a new modelling framework that integrates actors, institutions, the urban environment, hydrologic and hydrodynamic processes and external factors that affect flood risk management. The framework provides an interdisciplinary approach by allowing knowledge integrations from water and social sciences. An accompanying methodology allows developing coupled human and flood models to understand the interaction between human and flood systems and support flood risk management policy analysis and decision-making. The work was carried within the EC-funded FP7 project PEARL for which the foundation and theoretical background was established in Vojinovic (2014).

The Batavian Society of Experimental Philosophy, a Rotterdam-based scientific society founded in 1769 by the wealthy watchmaker and physicist Steven Hoogendijk, hands out the prize every two years to honour the best Cum Laude PhD theses on Engineering and Medical Sciences. The medical 2021 prize went to Dr. Patrick Meyer Sauteur of Erasmus MC.

Dr. Abebe’s prize is the first for an IHE Delft alumnus. After earning his doctoral degree in December 2020, he joined IHE Delft as a researcher in the H2020 project RECONECT focusing on development of models for planning and evaluation of nature-based solutions that reduces hydro-meteorological risk.

Publication:
Vojinovic, Z. 2014, Flood Risk: The Holistic Perspective, From Integrated to Interactive Planning for Flood Resilience, IWA Publishing.