Jana Cox, PhD Candidate, Utrecht University

 

Saved or starved? Human influences on sediment in river deltas

 

The talk will discuss the ongoing issue of land and elevation loss in river deltas (due to negative sediment budgets), how growing ship size and economic demand are altering delta morphology and what is being done globally to counteract these issues. It will focus on the example of the Rhine-Meuse delta in the Netherlands and insights form other river deltas globally. More than just physical aspects, multidisciplinary considerations such as population growth, economic demand, governance arrangements and politics determine how and if deltas will fight oncoming climate change issues. There will also be some sneak peak ideas from experiments about how we expect sea-level rise to affect anthropogenically altered deltas and estuaries.

 

Biography

Jana is a PhD candidate at Utrecht university working on the Rivers2morrow project, which seeks to find sustainable management solutions for large river systems. She has a BA in Earth Sciences from Trinity College in Dublin and MSc in Earth, Surface and Water from Utrecht University.