Kostarisk joint research laboratory has received government funding managed by the French National Research Agency under the France 2030 Investment Plan (ref. ANR-16-IDEX-0002).
Coastal flooding exposure assessment at different temporal and spatial scalesPhD – Aritz Abalia
Dates : 2021 – 2025.
Host : AZTI.
Direction : D. Morichon, I. de Santiago.
Link to manuscript : https://theses.fr/2025PAUU3012
Summary - This PhD thesis presents a coastal flooding hazards assessment framework covering regional and local scales, focusing on the Basque Coast in northern Spain. Using a dense video monitoring network, the study analyzes storm impacts across 13 beaches, revealing that beach morphology plays a more significant role in flood intensity than hydrodynamic conditions at regional scale.
Zarautz beach, identified as the most exposed beach to coastal flooding, serves as the pilot site for developing a process-based Early Warning System (EWS) that integrates numerical models and hazard level scales to predict flood severity. The system is validated with video data and shows reliable performance, though uncertainties remain due to variable boundary conditions.
An in-depth uncertainty analysis highlights the influence of dry beach width and foreshore slope (supratidal parameters) in the EWS results, especially during low-energy storms. The findings underscore the value of long-term monitoring and the need for further refinement of predictive tools.
