Marine and fluvial systems are natural systems that are increasingly managed and engineered to support societal needs. With the changing climate and increasing population pressure, there is a pressing need to better understand the response of managed marine and fluvial systems to extreme conditions, as well as their natural recovery and adaptation potential. Equally pressing is the need to apply this new knowledge in the development of resilient solutions for flood safety in coastal areas and along rivers and in a sustainable management of our river systems, coastal zones and the sea floor.
The MFS chair group comprises the chairs of Physics of Water Systems and Coastal Systems and Nature-based Engineering. Together we work on both fundamental and applied problems in rivers, seas, and coastal systems. We study the fundamental interactions between fluid flow and the surface over which the fluid flows, including the interaction of fluid flow (water flow, air flow) with sediment and vegetation as well as with hard infrastructure. In our research we cover a broad range of scales, ranging from detailed hydrodynamics and sediment transport processes to the landscape scale. We apply the natural systems understanding in the development of nature-based engineering solutions, where the natural processes form an essential part of the solution, and we apply it in the assessment of marine and fluvial systems vulnerability to environmental change (extremes and trends) to support strategic decision making in river and coastal management.
The methods we use include computer modelling, laboratory experiments and field observations. Because many of our studies are done in the context of managed natural systems, the problems considered are often transdisciplinary in nature and therefore we often seek collaboration with experts from other disciplines, such as ecologists, social scientists, landscape architects and serious game designers. We engage water authorities and parties from industry in our research as we see the development of science-based solutions for the management of marine and fluvial systems as a co-creation process.
