SENSE   |  In conversation with our researchers

Meet the Researcher

In this edition: Khin Nawarat

Khin tells us about their PhD research, the challenges they encounter, and their vision on extreme sea levels and coastal flooding. Read on to find out what drives them.

Background

I am Khin Nawarat. I grew up in Myanmar. My background is in coastal engineering. I completed my bachelor’s degree and first master’s degree at Myanmar Maritime University, specializing in Port & Harbour Engineering. I then came to the Netherlands for my second master’s degree at IHE Delft, specializing in Coastal Engineering and Port Development. I am based at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education and I am also affiliated with the University of Twente. My research group from IHE Delft is Coastal and Urban Risk & Resilience. My promotor is Prof. Roshanka Ranasinghe from IHE Delft, and my co-promotor is Dr. Claudia Tebaldi from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Research

I usually start by asking: do you know about coastal flooding caused by storms? Most people do. Then I explain that my research is about the very high sea levels that can cause these coastal flooding and that these are called extreme sea levels. And they occur during storms, especially when they coincide with high tides.

I study how these events are changing because of climate change, mainly at the global scale. I also look beyond the physical changes and investigate their possible socio-economic and environmental consequences, such as damage to infrastructure, and beach loss. This matters because many people, cities, infrastructure, and ecosystems are located close to the coast.

What motivated you to pursue this research topic?

It started with the excitement I found in doing a very large spatial-scale study during my master’s at IHE Delft. For my thesis, I quantified the economic losses caused by coastal flooding to transport infrastructure across Europe under present-day conditions and future emission scenarios. I could then relate the country-level economic losses to national GDP and government investment, which allowed me to discuss what the results could mean in practice. I found that very satisfying, and I was proud of my thesis. It made me more interested in large-scale climate impact assessments and how they can link with other indicators for practical decision-making and eventually contribute to climate resilience.

This PhD opportunity focused on the global scale, which was even larger than the European-scale work I had done before. It also addressed the impacts of climate change on extreme sea levels and included important research gaps that still needed to be explored, such as detecting climate change signals in extreme sea levels at the global scale and understanding when these signals emerge from natural variability. All of these reasons together motivated me to pursue this PhD.

What is the most surprising or counterintuitive finding or insight you have encountered so far?

One finding that surprised me was that climate change signals in extreme sea levels can emerge earlier in tropical regions, even though the actual increase in extreme sea level there can be smaller than in many extratropical regions.

The reason is that tropical coastlines often have relatively low natural variability in extreme sea levels. So even a smaller climate change signal can stand out more clearly from the background variability. It was a good reminder that the size of a change is not the only thing that matters; the conditions against which that change is happening are also very important. It is especially concerning because many of these tropical regions include lower-income countries, islands, and deltas with relatively limited capacity to adapt.

What is the biggest challenge in your research, and how are you approaching it?

One of my biggest challenges is communicating results from a large-scale study to a very diverse community. Global-scale and local-scale studies have different purposes, but they are sometimes directly compared as if they should provide the same level of detail.

For example, studies like mine are intended to identify large-scale patterns and support discussions around climate change mitigation, adaptation priorities, and strategic planning at national or global levels. Local-scale studies, on the other hand, are much better suited for regional planning, engineering design, and site-specific adaptation decisions because they can include much more detailed local information.

Even though I explain these limitations clearly to my audience and state that global-scale results should not be directly used for local decision-making, I still sometimes see the results being used in ways they were not intended for, or being criticized by comparing them directly with detailed local studies. I am still learning how best to deal with this challenge. For now, I try to communicate the purpose and limitations of the work as clearly as possible and explain the differences between spatial scales whenever I have the opportunity.

Societal Relevance & Collaboration

I hope my research can contribute to a better understanding of how climate change is already affecting extreme sea levels and coastal risks, and how these risks may increase with further global warming.

At the global and regional scales, this kind of information can help identify regions and countries that are particularly sensitive or vulnerable to climate change. I hope it can provide useful scientific evidence for discussions around global climate mitigation targets and help governments and international organizations think about where adaptation may become increasingly urgent.

I also hope the work highlights that mitigation and adaptation need to be considered together. Limiting global warming can reduce future coastal risks, while adaptation needs to consider not only short-term protection but also possible long-term and unintended consequences.

What kind of change would you like to see in your field over the next 10 years?

I would like to see stronger connections between global-, regional-, and local-scale coastal studies, with a clearer understanding of what each scale can and cannot be used for. They should complement each other rather than compete with each other.

I would also like to see more integration between the physical science of climate change and research on impacts, vulnerability, economics, and adaptation. Understanding how sea levels are changing is important, but we also need to understand what those changes mean for people, infrastructure, ecosystems, and decision-making.

Better and more openly available datasets, especially for vulnerable and currently under-mapped regions, would also make a big difference.

Are you collaborating with partners outside academia (e.g. government, NGOs, Industry)? If so, with whom and how?

Most of my collaborations are with researchers in academia, but I have also collaborated with researchers from the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and Deltares. My co-authors and collaborators also include researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). These collaborations bring together different expertise, including coastal hazards, climate science, risk assessment, and socio-economic impacts, which is very valuable for the type of interdisciplinary research I am doing.

What can researchers from other disciplines or countries learn from your work?

One lesson from my work is the value of looking at a problem from different spatial scales. Global studies cannot provide all the detail needed for local decisions, but they can reveal broad patterns, identify regions that may be particularly sensitive, and provide a common framework for comparing risks across countries. I also think researchers from other disciplines can take something from the way my research tries to connect physical climate changes with their consequences. Instead of stopping at how extreme sea levels are changing, I try to ask what those changes mean for flooding, infrastructure, economies, beaches, and adaptation. At the same time, I hope my work encourages people using large-scale datasets to think carefully about the purpose, assumptions, and limitations of those datasets before applying them to a different scale or context.

Life as a PhD Researcher

What do you enjoy most about being a PhD researcher within SENSE?

I really enjoy the PhD courses offered by SENSE and the SENSE annual symposium. They give me opportunities to meet fellow researchers working on very different environmental topics, learn outside my own research area, and exchange ideas and experiences with other PhDs.

What advice would you give to someone starting a PhD in environmental or sustainability sciences?

Be interested in what your results are telling you. Do not freak out or give up when they are not what you expected them to be. They are always trying to tell you something — sometimes it is a bug in your code, and sometimes it is a new finding. I think being curious about unexpected results instead of immediately seeing them as a problem is a very useful mindset during a PhD.

What do you enjoy outside of your research?

I enjoy painting, taking care of my houseplants, spending time in nature, and cooking for my loved ones. For exercise, I like going for long walks, cycling, and doing yoga.

Do you have a fun fact or surprising detail about yourself that you’d like to share with the SENSE community?

I really like to figure things out, whether it’s something simple like finding my way around a new place or something more complex, like understanding how an entire code setup works.