Women Advancing River Research: Iris Moeller

Modification of waves and water flows through the presence of coastal wetlands: a journey from the micro- to the macro-scale

Abstract: This talk will give an overview over the many different scales of interaction between moving water and the landform that is a coastal wetland. Appreciating the complexity of scales is essential to our understanding of how coastal wetlands function as coastal protection features and ultimately how resilient they are as landform structures and ecosystems to the many environmental pressures they are exposed to. The talk will report on the outcomes of two true-to-scale flume experiments and address the challenge of scaling-up knowledge acquired within controlled experimental and/or specific field settings to the landscape or even global scale – a necessity if we are to meet the needs of our 21st Century global communities resident in the low elevation coastal zone.  

Biography: Professor Iris Möller joined the Department of Geography in Trinity College Dublin  in October 2019 and took on the department head role there in January 2020. She is internationally recognized for her work on the buffering function of shallow coastal environments with a strongly applied focus on improving coastal flood and erosion risk management, particularly in the context of accelerated sea level rise and climate change.

After completing her Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, Iris spent a short spell outside of academia, working at HR Wallingford Ltd. She joined the University of Cambridge’s Coastal Research Unit as a Research Associate and Deputy Director in 1997. She took up a full-time College Lectureship in Physical Geography at Fitzwilliam College in 2000, and from 2014 to 2019, she held a University Lectureship in Physical Geography (Coastal Processes) at the Department of Geography at Cambridge. She has been leading a number of national and international research consortia on the science to underpin nature-based coastal protection, coastal wetland management, and coastal climate change adaptation.