Syed Arefin

PhD Researcher

I am working as a PhD researcher in UEA in Large Scale Restoration of Coastal Ecosystems: Assessing Protective Benefits under the European consortium project REST-COAST. Within this overall research aim, my work is to assess the protection function of coastal marshes and mangroves on waves and surges, as a function of different coastal and wetland geometries. Within the context of the research, I will examine the level of protection different geometries of coastal wetlands provide in terms of attenuated waves and extreme water levels. This will include consideration of the common situation of wetlands fronting a coastal defense and how such hybrid situations can be best characterized. Building on this the I will try to develop generic representations of these effects that can be characterized with fairly simple parameter sets, in a form that can be included in broad-scale assessments in Europe and more widely. In this way, this research will contribute to a European and global assessment of coastal risk reduction through wetland restoration.

Prior to coming this PhD research, I have had total 8.5 years of professional work experience in which 03 years after my B.Sc. as well as 5.5 years after my M.Sc. I have worked in several coastal projects in Bangladesh in Institute of Water Modelling (IWM), Bangladesh with collaboration with Deltares, Netherlands and DHI, Denmark. I have Completed M.Sc in Coastal Engineering from TU DELFT, University of Southampton, NTNU under Erasmus Mundus Scholarship in 2015-2017. I am interested to pursue my Ph.D. in Large Scale Restoration of Coastal Ecosystems as I have seen, In Bangladesh there is a huge skill gap in this sector as most of the protection work are done as hard structure. As Bangladesh is situated in one of the largest estuaries with a dense population living near the region the impact of climate change, sea level rise is quite severe. On the other hand maintain hard structure throughout the coast is very expensive as lot of new intervention are taking place near the coast. For this, it is essential for me to develop technical knowledge in this sector for better contribution to my country.