Response of Coastal Barriers and Freshwater Aquifers to Extreme Storm Surges and Flooding (ReFresh)

• Applicant: Dr.-Ing. Saber Elsayed Abdelaal, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 415209643

This project aims at creating a knowledge base for an improved understanding of the physical processes associated with the breaching of coastal barriers such as dunes under extreme storm surges as well as with those associated with the response to the subsequent inundation and recovery of freshwater aquifers after the vertical intrusion of the propagating seawater. The new knowledge and the prospective predictive formulae will be implemented in state-of-the-art surface and subsurface numerical codes, and particularly for properly coupling these codes. By these means, examining possible climate change scenarios will become feasible by developing a fully coupled surface-subsurface model system that includes previously neglected processes and interactions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants