ALEXANDRA TOIMIL SILVA
Biography
Alexandra Toimil is a Ramón y Cajal research fellow at the University of Cantabria (UC) and leads the team focused on climate change impacts in coastal areas within the Risks, Resilience, and Adaptation Group of the Instituto de Hidráulica Ambiental de Cantabria (IHCantabria). Her PhD thesis on climate change risks on coasts won the First-Prize Modesto Vigueras 2020, awarded by the Spanish Technical Association of Ports and Coasts (Spanish section of the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure, PIANC), and the XXth Juan María Parés Research Prize 2020, awarded by the Social Council of the UC to the best PhD thesis in the field of engineering for 2018-2020. Dr. Toimil was a visiting postdoctoral fellow for two periods of one year, one at the Climate Change and Energy Group at the University of Southampton’s School of Engineering (UK) and the other at the Coastal Risks and Climate Change Unit of BRGM (France). Her research activity covers the modelling of flood and erosion impacts, analysis of climate change risks in coastal areas, and adaptation. She has participated in more than 30 projects for the European Commission, MITECO, United Nations ECLAC, and The Nature Conservancy, among other organisations. Since 2019, she is one of the Principal Investigators (PI) of the H2020 CoCliCo Project on coastal climate services, where she also co-leads WP4 on Coastal Hazards with Robert Nicholls (University of East Anglia). Additionally, she is PI for two national competitive projects: COASTALfutures, which focuses on enhancing the quantification of flood protection services of beaches and other shorefront elements, and CoastDiTwin, aimed at developing the first prototype of a digital twin for coastal risk analysis and climate change adaptation. She also leads two regional projects, GDICOAST and GFLOOD, which involve implementing assimilation and machine learning techniques in impact modelling, as well as the development and application of dynamic adaptive policy pathways. Dr. Toimil has presented her research at more than 25 conferences, including 9 as an invited speaker, and has delivered 10 seminars at various universities, research centres, and consultancies, such as IHE, HR Wallingford, the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, ABPmer, and Jacobs. Since 2023, she has been involved in organizing and convening the session NH5.4 – Natural Hazards and Climate Change Impacts in Coastal Areas at the EGU General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union. She has supervised 10 MSc theses and 5 PhD theses. Of the PhD theses, one has been completed (Moisés Alvarez-Cuesta, 2022) and four are currently in progress.
LINES OF RESEARCH
Projections of coastal flood and erosion risks in varied-complexity coastal environments.
Multi-scale coastal flood and erosion coupling.
Data-assimilated and machine-learned coastal flood and erosion modelling.
Uncertainty sampling, analysis, and visualization.
Beach and shorefront flood protection value assessment.
Dynamic adaptive policy pathways applications for climate change adaptation.
pUBLiCATiOnS
Álvarez-Cuesta, M., Toimil, A., & Losada, I. J. (2024). Which data assimilation method to use and when: unlocking the potential of observations in shoreline modelling.Environmental Research Letters, 19(4), 044023.
Toimil, A., Losada, I. J., Álvarez-Cuesta, M., & Le Cozannet, G. (2023). Demonstrating the value of beaches for adaptation to future coastal flood risk.Nature Communications, 14(1), 3474.
Álvarez-Cuesta, M., Losada, I. J., & Toimil, A. (2023). A nearshore evolution model for sandy coasts: IH-LANSloc.Environmental Modelling & Software, 169, 105827.
Toimil, A., Álvarez-Cuesta, M., & Losada, I. J. (2023). Neglecting the effect of long-and short-term erosion can lead to spurious coastal flood risk projections and maladaptation.Coastal Engineering, 179, 104248.
Toimil, A., Losada, I. J., Hinkel, J., & Nicholls, R. J. (2021). Using quantitative dynamic adaptive policy pathways to manage climate change-induced coastal erosion.Climate Risk Management, 33, 100342.
Toimil, A., Camus, P., Losada, I. J., & Álvarez-Cuesta, M. (2021). Visualising the uncertainty cascade in multi-ensemble probabilistic coastal erosion projections.Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, 683535.
Álvarez-Cuesta, M., Toimil, A., & Losada, I. J. (2021). Modelling long-term shoreline evolution in highly anthropized coastal areas. Part 1: Model description and validation.Coastal Engineering, 169, 103960.
Álvarez-Cuesta, M., Toimil, A., & Losada, Y. I. (2021). Modelling long-term shoreline evolution in highly anthropized coastal areas. Part 2: Assessing the response to climate change.Coastal Engineering, 168, 103961.
Thiéblemont, R., Le Cozannet, G., Rohmer, J., Toimil, A., Álvarez-Cuesta, M., & Losada, I. J. (2021). Deep uncertainties in shoreline change projections: an extra-probabilistic approach applied to sandy beaches, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 21, 2257–2276,
Toimil, A., Camus, P., Losada, I. J., Le Cozannet, G., Nicholls, R. J., Idier, D., & Maspataud, A. (2020). Climate change-driven coastal erosion modelling in temperate sandy beaches: Methods and uncertainty treatment.Earth-Science Reviews, 202, 103110.
Toimil, A., Losada, I. J., Nicholls, R. J., Dalrymple, R. A., & Stive, M. J. (2020). Addressing the challenges of climate change risks and adaptation in coastal areas: A review.Coastal Engineering, 156, 103611.
Losada, I. J., Toimil, A., Muñoz, A., García-Fletcher, A. P., & Diaz-Simal, P. (2019). A planning strategy for the adaptation of coastal areas to climate change: The Spanish case.Ocean & coastal management, 182, 104983.
Toimil, A., Díaz-Simal, P., Losada, I. J., & Camus, P. (2018). Estimating the risk of loss of beach recreation value under climate change.Tourism Management, 68, 387-400.
Toimil, A., Losada, I. J., Camus, P., & Díaz-Simal, P. (2017). Managing coastal erosion under climate change at the regional scale.Coastal Engineering, 128, 106-122.
Toimil, A., Losada, I. J., Díaz-Simal, P., Izaguirre, C., & Camus, P. (2017). Multi-sectoral, high-resolution assessment of climate change consequences of coastal flooding.Climatic Change, 145, 431-444.