Lisa Watkins, graduate student researcher in the Soil & Water Lab at Cornell University, USA, will join the Delta Alliance from July through September 2018 as a visiting researcher. Working on a collaboration with Prof. Ton Hoitink of Wageningen University & Research and Prof. Dano Roelvink of IHE Delft, Lisa will be working with a morphodynamic model to assess the impact of opening polders on sediment movement within the delta region of Bangladesh. The embankment around the polders once created only positive effects on protecting farmed, populated land from floodwaters, but increasingly they fall short because of subsidence of the land and sedimentation of the river channels. With flood risk only projected to grow under climate change predictions, re-imagining flood controls in the delta region is important for its continued liveability, and this project aims to bring important data to managers and policy-makers about how best to do so.

Contact: Ton Hoitink