PhD Studentship: Quantifying compounding and cascading physical climate risk to UK infrastructureUniversity

Climate change is intensifying hazards, such as flooding, heat, drought, storms, that threaten the resilience of UK infrastructure. Most existing risk assessments treat these hazards in isolation and for single asset classes, missing two critical realities: hazards compound (e.g. heat and drought together) and cascade across interdependent systems (e.g. flooding disrupts power, which disrupts water treatment and transport).

This project will develop a UK infrastructure risk assessment that starts with rigorous hazard damage modelling for a single infrastructure sector, then extends this to quantify compounding and cascading risk pathways across interconnected infrastructure systems, and finally translates physical risk into economic loss estimates relevant to investors, insurers and policymakers. The student will use probabilistic UK climate projections (UKCP18) and infrastructure network data to develop this analysis from the ground up.

The project offers training in climate science, infrastructure risk engineering, network analysis and economic risk quantification, and the opportunity to engage with real-world users of climate risk assessments in finance, insurance and government.

Funded by: EPSRC Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

£21,805. The studentship will provide funding of fees and a stipend of £21,805 per annum for 2026/7.