Miss Leanne Archer

I am a NERC GW4+ PhD student interested in disaster risk in Small Island Developing States. My PhD is investigating how flood inundation estimates can be improved in small islands under current and future climate change. As part of this work, I am developing an event-based pluvial flood model to determine flood risk associated with hurricane rainfall in Puerto Rico under 1.5C and 2C climate change.

I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate on a project investigating changes in pluvial flooding under climate change using UKCP18 2.2km Local data, with colleagues at the University of Bristol, Fathom and the UK Met Office. I have also participated in Emergency Flood Bulletins during Cyclone Eloise in Mozambique for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and I am a Research Intern on the interdisciplinary Brigstow Institute project 'How can flood data be more useful?'. 

I am a teaching assistant and demonstrator on undergraduate and masters modules in the School of Geographical Sciences: Climate Change Science, Impacts and Policy; Introduction to GIS and Remote Sensing; Floods, Flows and Erosion in River Basins; and Environmental Risks, Management and Policy.

During my Masters by Research (MScR) project I assessed whether a newly-released Digital Elevation Model TanDEM-X could be used to improve flood estimates in Small Island Developing States. I worked on creating a suitable method to process the TanDEM-X to a Digital Terrain Model for input into hydrodynamic model LISFLOOD-FP. During this project I was under receipt of the JBA Trust/British Hydrological Society MSc Studentship Award Scheme for 2017. I also completed an 8 month internship at environmental consultancy LUC as a GIS consultant.

I graduated from the University of Southampton in July 2017 with a First Class Honours degree in Geography. I was awarded the Fawcett Prize for Outstanding Achievement in the 2017 Geography cohort and the Faculty of Social, Human and Mathematical Sciences Dean's Award in 2016 and 2017.