Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
Royal Netherlands
Institute for Sea Research
Phone number
+31 (0)113 57 7481
Location
Yerseke
Function
Postdoc
Expertise
  • Sea level projections
  • Compound events
  • Multivariate statistical modeling

Dr. Victor Malagon Santos

Postdoc

Research Interests

  • Changes in sea levels and impacts.
  • Flood risk.
  • Numerical and statistical modeling of coastal processes.
  • Coastal oceanography and morphodynamics.

Research at NIOZ

The research I am performing at NIOZ is part of a large collaborative project funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020, the so-called PROTECT project. The overarching aim of PROTECT is to project changes in the land-based cryosphere to produce global and regional projections of sea-level rise (SLR) and assess associated impacts to support coastal adaptation planning policies. Our role in PROTECT is to investigate SLR using different statistical frameworks and outputs from state-of-the-art ice sheet and glacier models (produced within PROTECT) to design global and regional SLR projections up to 2100 and to 2500, accounting for all SLR components.

Previous Research

The focus of my PhD research was on compound flooding in coastal areas, which mainly stems from the interaction between river discharge and surge processes. The flooding drivers leading to compound flooding may or may not be extreme, but their interaction can lead to extreme societal, economical, and environmental impacts. Observed compound events are often scarce, which complicates their thorough assessment. For my PhD, I assessed the suitability of different multivariate statistical modelling approaches to assess compound flooding, examined the uncertainty introduced by scarce data, and used hydrological models to assess the along-river effects of compound flooding.

I have also been involved in other coastal research topics, such as the prediction of dune erosion under extreme events (side PhD project) and the assessment of the spatial and temporal characteristics of extreme wave events (MSc thesis).

 

Linked news

Thursday 23 March 2023
Flood risk ten times higher in many places within 30 years
After the North Sea Flood of 1953, it took nearly 45 years to finalize the Delta Works. If we want to protect The Netherlands against sea-level rise, we shouldn’t wait too long. But how much time do we have left? Researchers from NIOZ, Utrecht…

NIOZ publications

  • 2022
    Jane, R. A.; Malagon Santos, V.; Rashid, M.M.; Doebele, L.; Wahl, T.; Timmers, S.R.; Serafin, K.A.; Schmied, L.; Lindemer, C. (2022). A hybrid framework for rapidly locating transition zones: A comparison of event‐ and response‐based return water levels in the Suwannee River FL. Water Resour. Res. 58(11): e2022WR032481. https://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2022wr032481
    Jane, R.; Wahl, T.; Malagon Santos, V.; Misra, S.K.; White, K.D. (2022). Assessing the potential for compound storm surge and extreme river discharge events at the catchment scale with statistical models: sensitivity analysis and recommendations for best practice. J. Hydrol. Eng. 27(3). https://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(asce)he.1943-5584.0002154
  • 2021
    Malagon Santos, V.; Casas-Prat, M.; Poschlod, B.; Ragno, E.; van den Hurk, B.; Hao, Z.; Kalmár, T.; Zhu, L.; Najafi, H. (2021). Statistical modelling and climate variability of compound surge and precipitation events in a managed water system: a case study in the Netherlands. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 25(6): 3595-3615. https://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-3595-2021
    Malagon Santos, V.; Wahl, T.; Jane, R.; Misra, S.K.; White, K.D. (2021). Assessing compound flooding potential with multivariate statistical models in a complex estuarine system under data constraints. J. Flood Risk Man. 14(4): e12749. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jfr3.12749
    Nicholls, R.J.; Beaven, R.P.; Stringfellow, A.; Monfort, D.; Le Cozannet, G.; Wahl, T.; Gebert, J.; Wadey, M.; Arns, A.; Spencer, K.L.; Reinhart, D.; Heimovaara, T.; Malagon Santos, V.; Enríquez, A.R.; Cope, S. (2021). Coastal landfills and rising sea levels: A challenge for the 21st century. Front. Mar. Sci. 8: 710342. https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.710342