Teaching & Service

Teaching

Flood Risk: Damage Component

Period: June 2023
Program and Institution: Curricular Course 2, "Socio-Economic Risk and Impacts," as part of the National PhD Program in Sustainable Development and Climate Change, IUSS Pavia
Role: Lecturer
Topics: Introduction to the risk framework (Hazard, Vulnerability, Exposure), examples of damage models (Vulnerability, Exposure) with a focus on the distinction between direct and indirect impacts.


Graph-Based Model to Assess Complex Flood Risk Systems

Period: February 25–27, 2020
Program and Institution: DRMKC Joint Training on Disaster Risk Management (Coventry University)
Role: Lecturer
Topics:
The training was co-organized by the Disaster and Emergency Management programs and the "Center for Global Learning: Education and Attainment." The joint DRMKC training aimed to provide participants with cutting-edge, evidence-based, and international knowledge on disaster risk management.


Hydrological Risk

Period: First semester of 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022
Program and Institution: Master's Degree in Civil Engineering for Mitigation of Risk from Natural Hazards, IUSS Pavia and University of Pavia
Role: Teaching Assistant (Prof. Mario Martina)
Topics:


Catastrophic Models for Natural Hazard Risk

Period: First semester of 2018
Program and Institution: Master's Degree in Civil Engineering for Mitigation of Risk from Natural Hazards, IUSS Pavia and University of Pavia
Role: Teaching Assistant (Prof. Mario Martina)
Topics:


Flood Risk, Emergency Preparedness, and Risk Management

Period: Summer 2019
Program and Institution: Short course within the summer school "Natural Disasters Emergency Management: From the Survey to the Disaster Policy," IUSS Pavia
Role: Lecturer
Topics: Introduction to flood risk, covering emergency preparedness and risk management with a focus on regional-scale approaches.


Convener at conferences

Period: April 2023
Conference: European Geoscience Union Assembly
Role: Convener
Session: NH9.7 "Intangible Dimensions of Climate Hazards: Health Impact and Dynamic Social Vulnerability Assessments"
Co-conveners: Eunice Lo, Timothy Tiggeloven, Samuel Lüthi, Lena Reimann, Ana Maria Vicedo Cabrera, Chiara Arrighi

Session Topics:

Following the success of the session, with 28 submissions (20 presentations and 8 posters), I applied as editor to launch a new Special Issue (SI) in the interdisciplinary international journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS), titled: "Indirect and Intangible Impacts of Natural Hazards." The SI proposal was submitted in my name and on behalf of the following editors: Timothy Tiggeloven (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Sairam V (GFZ Potsdam), Chiara Arrighi (University of Florence), Stefan Hochrainer-Stigler (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg)

Thesis Supervision

PhD SDC – 38th Cycle | A Systemic Framework for Climate Risk Assessment and Management

Period: 2022–2025
Thesis Type: PhD SDC
Candidate: Elisa Nobile
Topic: In the first six months of her PhD, the candidate conducted a systematic literature review on topics related to indirect flood damages, from both engineering and economic perspectives. Preliminary results were presented at EGU23. In the coming months, she will develop a new methodology for climate risk assessment using a systemic approach (e.g., ABM, System Dynamics, IO, etc.), focusing on interactions among economic sectors.


PhD SDC – 39th Cycle | Framework for Risk Quantification of Business Interruption Across Different Economic Sectors

Period: 2023–2026
Thesis Type: PhD SDC
Candidate: Phan Tan
Topic: Assessing the risk of complex systems to natural hazards induced by climate and its change is an important and challenging problem. More natural extreme events (e.g., flood, storms, etc.) could result in damages to physical assets and/or interruption of production and supply chain, thus affecting the economic sector and therefore the society. Climate-related disasters’ impact assessment requires also an appraisal of indirect effects due, for example, to business interruptions and Contingent Business.In this context, the research will progress on the activities at IUSS on the development of an approach to indirect impacts due to extreme climate events (Arosio et all., EGU23-7522, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-7522, 2023) that attempt to integrate engineering risk assessment models and economic input-output models. In particular, tit will be dedicated to explore the missing link between the physical damages (e.g., structure, goods, machinery) and the indirect impacts in the economic sectors.Based on the state of art, the candidate needs:● to critically review the most recent literature, tools and database of risk assessment,● to develop a novel research framework addressing the existing research gap between the physical direct damage and indirect impact in the economic sectors;● to collaborate both with IUSS research team and the research team of the industrial partner for this project, Gallagher Re, in a multi-disciplinary and applied research context;


PhD SDC – 39th Cycle | Risk-Based Design and Management of Urban Solutions Decisions

Period: 2023–2026
Thesis Type: PhD SDC
Candidate: Owais Durrani
Topic: In today’s intricate socio-technological world, assessing the risk of metropolitan areas (e.g., Milan) to natural hazards induced by climate change is an important and challenging problem.In this context, the scope of this research will promote a paradigm shift in the design and management of urban solutions that offer services to society: shitfting to sustainability analysis based on the assessment of the associated systemic and integrated risk. The research should address a cost benefit analysis based on the parameterization of the total costs of implementing the solutions (also in relation to the actions of the Air and Climate Plan of the Milan Municipality), calculate the risk for different scenarios, estimate the benefit obtained from the reduction of the risk and seeking the solution that offers the minimum cost/benefit ratio and the most suited to social expectations. The research will progress on the activities at IUSS on holistic approach (Arosio et al., 2020, doi:10.5194/nhess-20-521- 2020) that allows to analyze systemic risk based on a graph, in particular to assess properties, to propagate the damage and account for the resilience characteristics. The candidate needs:- to critically review the recent literature, tools and database- to develop a risk-based approach for a sustainable design and management of hard and soft urban solutions- to collaborate in a multi-disciplinary context of IUSS research team and the Urban Resilience Dept. of Milan municipality

PhD SDC – 40th Cycle | Risk of Natural Hazards: Network Resilience and System Fragmentation

Period: 2023–2026
Thesis Type: PhD SDC
Candidate: Nicol Fidelibus
Topic: Assessing the risk of complex systems to natural hazards induced by climate and its change is an important and challenging problem. In today’s intricate socio-technological world, characterized by strong urbanization and technological trends, the connections and interdependencies between exposed elements are crucial. In this context of complex relationships, this PhD research aims to explore the potentiality of using graph theory in risk assessment of catastrophic hazards. It will progress on the activities at IUSS on the development of an innovative holistic approach (doi:10.5194/nhess-20-521- 2020) that allows to analyze risk in complex systems based on a graph, the mathematical structure to model connections between elements. The approach suggests representing the system's exposed elements and their connections using a weighted and redundant graph (doi.org/10.3390/w13202830). This method evaluates network properties to emphasize the centrality of certain "critical" exposed elements.The focus of the research will be to analyze how the percolation threshold and network fragmentation could be used to explains a system's resilience after disruption of extreme natural hazards (e.g., flood), distinguishing between the connected and fragmented phases and determining whether the system can maintain its structure or completely fail. Furthermore, the graph will be used to propagate impact into the system, for not only direct but also indirect and cascading effects.


MSc Thesis - Fluvial Flood Risk Assessment and Mitigation Based on Global Open-Source Data in Kara, Togo

Period: 2022–2023
Thesis Type: Master’s Thesis
Student: Mohammad Tamadoni
Topic: This thesis was developed as part of the Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering for Mitigation of Risk from Natural Hazards under the supervision of Prof. Martina (IUSS Pavia and University of Pavia). The student conducted a fluvial flood risk assessment in collaboration with AXA Climate for the populated city of Kara in Togo, using exclusively global open-source data. The process began with hydrological analysis, deriving runoff hydrographs using IDF curves via Curve Number and Unit Hydrograph methods. Hazard maps were produced through two-dimensional hydraulic simulations in HEC-RAS, and global damage functions were used to estimate risks for agricultural land and residential structures as exposed assets of interest. Once risk curves and monetary representations were obtained, various mitigation strategy scenarios were implemented, including structural measures like levee construction and non-structural measures such as the development of an Early Warning System (EWS).