A fully funded PhD position: Viva Italia! The Holocene coastal evolution of the NE Italian coast (1...

The Department of Physical Geography (Faculty of Geosciences) is searching for a PhD candidate who will improve our understanding of Holocene coastal development of the NE Italian coastal plain. This project is funded by the department and titled ‘Viva Italia: constraining models of coastal morphology with field data during transgressions’. The project will employ both models and reconstruction techniques to get a grip on sedimentation rates, vegetation interaction and landscape forms in a lagoonal setting.

Low-lying coastal areas such as barrier coasts and estuaries are vulnerable to ongoing Sea-Level Rise (SLR). These areas might (partly) drown and lead to loss of valuable ecosystems. In this research we will focus on historical and future sedimentation rates in tidal basins and estuaries in subsidence-sensitive areas, since over the last decades these areas have shown the largest changes. In our study area, the NE Italian coast, limited sand availability and strong subsidence is an additional complicating factor. Exact knowledge on how the system responds to climate change and SLR is therefore crucial to improve the (sediment) management in these systems.

What will you be doing?
To project future coastal evolution as a function of SLR typically models, such as Delft3D, are used. However, these models need to be validated and calibrated to have confidence in their predictions, but direct observations of infilling or drowning rates in tidal basins and estuaries are scarce. We therefore need a geological analogue of the current transgression to parameterize models in vulnerable coastal regions.
You will integrate existing and new field data on subsurface morphology and sediment composition of the NE Italian coast – partly produced by BSc students during course work – and supplement these with proxy analyses of past vegetation cover (using palynology) and water depth/salinity (using e.g. foraminifera or diatom remains) from selected boreholes. These data will be used to simulate the sedimentation rates in tidal basins for several Holocene time windows (with Delft3D) and to study sensitivity to environmental settings.
This is a unique opportunity to contribute to major scientific questions while working towards a doctorate.

PhD candidates at Utrecht University follow courses as part of their own academic and personal development. They also assist in teaching courses at Bachelor's and Master's level at our faculty. Both activities amount to approximately 10% of the contracted time.