Funded PhD offer: Global beaches hydro-morphodynamics from satellites (2023 >36 months, LEGOS, Toulouse, France)
Rafael Almar
Context
Nearshore beach drivers (incl. waves) and morphology (e.g. sandbars) have a strong influence on coastal development. Despite their importance, nearshore morphologies (e.g. sandbars) remain undocumented on a global basis. While capturing nearshore fine-scale hydro-morphodynamical features has historically been beyond the reach of Earth Observation Satellite methods at large scales, current missions are now providing such detailed level data on a regularly (2-10 days) and global basis at increasing resolutions. Using a combination of satellite Earth observation and high performance computing, this thesis aims to estimate the evolution of the state of the beaches and their driver worldwide under climatic and anthropogenic influences.
Approach
The PhD will take advantage of the latest scientific findings and technological development to cover nearshore hydro-morphodynamics worldwide. As part of the GLOBCOASTS project (funded by the Agence Nationale Française de la Recherche), the student will have access to the CNES’ High Performance Cluster (HPC) with a datalake of Sentinel-2 images available to process worldwide satellite datasets.
Required skills
Master or Engineering degree from an engineering school in coastal engineering, geophysics or remote sensing. Motivation and a particular affinity with the coast and/or coastal environment, HPC computing and possibly machine learning.
Contact/applications
rafael...@ird.fr (senior researcher IRD - https://www.ird.fr), LITTORAL team
Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales LEGOS (CNRS/IRD/CNES/Université de Toulouse), Toulouse – France
https://www.legos.omp.eu/littoral
Main collaboration with CNES, SHOM, ISAE-SUPAERO and LOPS
References:
Bergsma, E. W., Almar, R., Anthony, E. J., Garlan, T., & Kestenare, E. (2022). Wave variability along the world’s continental shelves and coasts: Monitoring opportunities from satellite Earth observation. Advances in Space Research, 69(9), 3236-3244.
Almar, R., Ranasinghe, R., Bergsma, E. W., Diaz, H., Melet, A., Papa, F., ... & Kestenare, E. (2021). A global analysis of extreme coastal water levels with implications for potential coastal overtopping. Nature communications, 12(1), 3775.