Monday morning 9am, in the Seminar room of the Geology Department: 20 PhD students and Post-Docs from all over the world have come together to participate at the summer school „Coastal hazards“. The R06 arm of the „Future Ocean“ Excellence Cluster has invited local experts as well as international scientists to talk about a large variety of topics related to the overarching topic „Coastal hazards“.
The first day starts with an introduction into the principles of coastal protection strategies with a special focus on the German coastal regions. Andreas Kortenhaus, a coastal engineer from the TU Braunschweig, did a great job in explaining various approaches how coastal protection structures (e.g. dikes) may be designed to prevent coastal flooding during hazardous storm surges under current an future climate conditions.
The theoretical concepts presented in the morning session could then be applied by the participants during some exercise calculations of potential run-up heights for different dike designs. The afternoon session was closed by two presentations and discussions about their own topics.
The icebreaker event took place in the Forstbaumschule (a Kiel-famous Restaurant/Beergarden). Food and drinks were covered until 9 pm, but interesting discussions and the getting-to-know-each-other in a relaxed atmosphere continued until later….