Sophie Buijs

PhD Candidate, Faculty of Science, Water and Climate Risk

Personal information

Sophie Buijs is a PhD candidate within the Water & Climate Risk department of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM). She has a background in environmental science from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (MSc) where she obtained her degree in Global Environmental Change & Policy (cum laude). Before that she studied chemistry at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam / Universiteit van Amsterdam (BSc, joint degree). Before her PhD, she had already worked on various topics within the field of water and climate risk, including wildfire risk in the Netherlands (Firescapes), as a research assistant, and coastal adaptation for SIDS, which she explored for Bonaire during her master thesis for an overarching study focussing on the impacts of climate change on Bonaire that was created at the request of Greenpeace NL.

Research

Her current research is a part of the MYRIAD-EU project, which aims to change the way that risks are currently being addressed and managed. Instead of addressing risks and hazards individually, the goal is to move towards a more comprenhensive multi-hazard and multi-risk approach. In her research she tries to improve our understanding of post-disaster recovery from a multi-risk perspective. She applies different quantitative, as well as qualitative methods (e.g. remote sensing, programming, statistical analysis, and surveys) to evaluate recovery of various human- and environmental systems. Some of the topics that are included in her research are: recovery of economic activity and wetlands, the occurrence of disease outbreaks after consecutive disasters, and multi-hazard preparedness of SMEs.