Keynote #1 | Bregje van Wesenbeeck
Scientific Director of Deltares and a Senior Expert in Nature-based Solutions
Bregje van Wesenbeeck is the scientific director of Deltares and a senior expert in nature-based solutions. She also is an associate professor at the Delft University of Technology in nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction with a focus on salt marshes and mangroves. In her research she bridges between nature and engineering by investigating the effects of vegetation on wave attenuation under extreme conditions and the effects of hydraulic forces on vegetation failure. She also investigates long-term resilience of coastal ecosystems to sea level rise. At Deltares she has been working in inclusion of nature in coastal management for over 15 years.
Including nature and natural dynamics into management of coastal zones
van Wesenbeeck will present on science and valorization of working with nature and natural processes. Her presentation is entitled “Including nature and natural dynamics into management of coastal zones”. She will discuss the current state of knowledge on inclusion of nature into coastal management practice, looking at muddy salt marsh and mangrove coasts. She will draw on experimental research and numerical with marshes, flood plain forests and mangroves to advance our knowledge of vegetated foreshore systems in damping waves and surges. For management implications she will draw parallels with sandy coastal systems in the Netherlands where management of beaches and dunes has evolved over the last decades.
Keynote #2 | Alec Torres-Freyermuth
Associate Professor in the Engineering Institute
National Autonomous University of Mexico
Alec Torres-Freyermuth is a Researcher in the Engineering Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Cantabria (Spain) and his MSc in Ocean Engineering from the Florida Institute of Technology (USA). He was a postdoc researcher at the University of Florida (USA) and the University of Delaware (USA). His research interest is related to the study of surf and swash zone hydrodynamics, wave runup, beach morphodynamics, wave-structure interaction, and coastal resilience. He conducts his research at the Coastal Processes and Engineering Laboratory (LIPC) and the National Coastal Resilience Laboratory (LANRESC) in Sisal, Yucatan (Mexico).
Linking beach morphodynamics and coastal resilience
Coastal resilience has become a key element for coastal management and for climate change adaptation plans. In this presentation, beach morphodynamics studies, based on laboratory experiments, field and remote sensing observations, at a low-energy coast will be presented. The role of natural (storms) and anthropogenic (coastal structures) perturbations, at different spatial (mm to km) and temporal (sec to decades) scales, in the bar-beach-dune system is investigated. In situ and remote sensing observations allow to investigate the beach’s capability to prepare, resist, and recover from physical disturbances. A new beach resilience index, which is solely based on time series of beach morphometric parameters, is proposed and validated. Moreover, current challenges for assessing coastal resilience, including the need for conducting site-specific transdisciplinary work and improving communication of scientific knowledge to local stakeholders, will be discussed.
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