Óscar Ferreira is an Associate Professor at the University of Algarve holding a BSc and a MSc in Applied and Economic Geology and a PhD in Marine Sciences – Coastal Dynamics. He works in Coastal Dynamics, Coastal Risks and Coastal Management and participated in more than 20 national and international research projects, being coordinator of several national research projects and member of several coordination commissions, including at the European projects MICORE and RiscKIT (FP7), both devoted to risk analysis at coastal areas and assessment of risk reduction measures. He published more than 140 articles in international journals on topics related to coastal evolution, dynamics, risks and management. His research activities have been developed nationally, with particular emphasis on the Algarve, and in different European countries through the international projects in which he participated.

Luísa Bon de Sousa (MSc in Marine and Coastal Systems) is a collaborator of the project and her activity focused on creating Digital Terrain Models and the Orto photomaps of the study areas using UAV or drones. She has a wide experience as a pilot of UAV working in different environments including coastal and agriculture areas. During her master at University of Algarve she studied the impact of sea level rise on platform beaches. Soon she will start her PhD where she will study the functional capacity of the dune system by using UAV technology. In her free time, she enjoys walking in nature and beaches and also spending time with family and friends.

Maria Teresa Reis, PhD in Civil Engineering and MSc in Maritime Civil Engineering, is a research officer with 30 years of experience working in the field of coastal engineering, including 3 years in consultancy in Portugal and in the UK. She is a Senior Member of the Portuguese Institution of Engineers and a member of the Specialized Commission in Hydraulics and Water Resources of the same institution. Her work has concentrated on wave run-up, overtopping and stability of coastal structures, including numerical and physical modelling, on monitoring and inspection of maritime works, on the probabilistic design and assessment of the safety of coastal structures, on coastal forecast and warning systems and on risk management in maritime infrastructure. She has been involved on a wide range of studies (45 research projects and 50 contract studies), promoted by national and international entities, some of them as project manager. Her work has been published in 45 articles in national/international peer-reviewed journals, 130 papers in proceedings of national/international conferences, 6 book chapters and more than 120 technical/scientific reports. She has received the "2013 Best Paper Award” (awarded annually by ASCE, USA, to the best paper in the Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering), the "Halcrow for the year 2012” (awarded annually by the UK Institution of Civil Engineers, to the best paper in the journal Maritime Engineering) and the "Robert Legget Prize for the year 1998” (awarded annually by Liverpool University to the best PhD Thesis of the Faculty of Engineering).

Ap van Dongeren is a Senior Specialist with experience in wave dynamics and coastal impact. He has been project leader on a number of national and international projects for the Dutch government, Dutch water boards, the Office of Naval Research, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. He was Coordinator on an EU-FP7 project called RISC-KIT on coastal resilience and extreme coastal events. He is the program manager on the strategic research program on "Quantification of Flood Hazards and Impacts", and member of the Deltares Scientific Board. He has led the development from the Deltares side of the open-source XBeach model from a dune erosion model to wider applicability on coral, gravel and vegetated coasts. He has led the development of Delft3D as an open-source model for the Navy and the development of a tool to quickly set up models and the development of a method to derive nearshore bathymetries from remote sensing. He served on the U.S. National Academies’ Committee on Coastal Risk Reduction for the U.S. Corps of Engineers. He has led a project team to improve the performance of SWAN (a wave action model) in a tidal inlet sea in order to derive more reliable Dutch wave boundary conditions. He has been Work Package Leader for the MICORE project, which has developed online dune erosion models for the European Union.

Juan L. Garzon is a postdoctoral fellow at CIMA/University of Algarve since May of 2019. He earned his bachelor in Civil Engineering by the University of Granada and his master degree in coastal and port engineering by the University of Cantabria. In 2018, he obtained his PhD in Coastal and Environmental Engineering at George Mason University (USA). His research focused on coastal flooding in large estuaries and the utilization of natural solutions for coastal protection. Specifically, assessing the ability of Spartina saltmarshes to attenuate floodings and reduce wave energy. Juan has a wide experience working with field equipment included low and high water pressure sensors, ADCPs, GPS system, etc. Regarding his numerical skills, he has a wide experience using models simulating hydrodynamics and sediment transport such as ADCIRC, DELFT3D, MIKE 21, SWAN and XBeach. During his academic and professional career, he has visited several countries such as Spain, Mexico, the USA, England and Portugal.

Margarida Ramires is a research technician at the University of Algarve, working in the sedimentology laboratory. As a collaborator on the project, Margarida is responsible for collecting sediment samples and processing them in the laboratory. She also supports field work efforts focused on topographic surveys with the GPS and Drone systems. Her work experience covers from laboratory treatment of sediment samples, computer processing, geographic information systems and databases to field work related tasks including obtaining sedimentological, topological, and bathymetric information. Margarida enjoys her work essentially because she has a strong connection with nature and the sea. Furthermore, she likes spending her time at beach after work as well.

Conceição Juana Fortes (female), PhD in Mechanical Engineering, head of the Ports & Maritime Structures Unit, (Hydraulics & Environment Department, LNEC), is a principal research officer with 30 years of experience on numerical and physical modelling of wave propagation and deformation in coastal regions. Member of the Portuguese Institution of Engineers and a specialised member (Hydraulics and Water Resources) of the same institution. She has been involved in several research projects (more than 40 research projects and 65 contract studies), both at national and international levels, some of them as project manager. She has published the results of her work through a vast number of publications: 86 articles in national and international peer-reviewed journals, 340 papers in proceedings of national and international conferences, 6 book chapters and more than 190 technical and scientific reports of LNEC.

Rute has almost 30 years of experience in the maritime hydraulics area, mainly in physical modeling. Participated in more than 70 marine structures scale model tests studies in Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Morocco, Developed a database in MS Access for storing and analyzing data from systematic monitoring of marine structures (ANOSOM) applied in Portugal (mainland and Azores) and Morocco. She has developed methodologies for 3D surface modelling of rubble-mound breakwaters scale models, as well as in aero photogrammetric surveys under the scope of systematic monitoring campaigns of maritime structures. She has published the results of their work through a vast number of publications: 1 Master Thesis, 6 papers in national and international journals, 65 papers in proceedings of national and international conferences, 2 book chapters and 75 technical and scientific reports.

Theocharis Plomaritis

Theocharis (Haris) Plomaritis holds a BSc.(Hons) in Environmental Sciences from the University of Aegean (Greece) and a MSc. and PhD in Oceanography from the University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre (UK). Currently, he is a Tenure Lecturer in the Department of Applied Physics, Faculty of Marine and Environmental Science of the University of Cadiz (Spain). His research interests are coastal oceanography and beach morphodynamic with special interest on extreme events and associated risks. Haris has a more than 10 years of post-doctoral experience and has participated in more than 10 research project at a national (Greece, UK, Spain and Portugal) and international level including the EU-funded projects MICORE and RISCKIT

Susana Costas graduated in Marine Sciences (specialty: Geosciences) by the University of Vigo in 2000 where she started her research career and contributed for the future management of the Atlantic Islands of Galiza National Park. She initiated her PhD in 2002 in Coastal Geosciences at the University of Vigo, Spain, where she was granted with a fellowship founded by the University. After her PhD, she was awarded with a Post-doctoral Fulbright Scholarship at the International Hurricane Research Center during 2007 (Florida International University, USA) and at Boston University (USA) during 2008. Following this postdoctoral stage, she was hired as a research assistant within the Ciência Programme at UGM-National Laboratory of Energy and Geology, Portugal, between 2009 and 2013. The next step gave her the change to work as a post-doctoral researcher in the frame of a European Research Project (Resilience-Increasing Strategies for Coasts-toolKIT - RISCKIT) at CIMA-University of Algarve, Portugal. In this frame, she focused on socio-economics and on the elaboration of disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures.

Andrea Ferreira is a civil engineer post-graduated in Sustainable Construction by the Faculty of Sciences and Technology – New University of Lisbon, with a MSc in Marine Sciences by the Faculty of Sciences – University of Lisbon.Recently she has worked as a research grant holder, under the supervision of Professor Rui Taborda, in the PMAACO project (Climate Change Adaptation Plan for Oeiras Municipality). Her main tasks were to assess flood and wave overtopping risks in the present and in future climate change scenarios. She also participated in the PIAAC-AMAL project (Inter-municipal Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the Algarve Region) regarding costal flood impacts and adaptation at the “Safety of People and Goods” sector. Her research focuses on coastal risks reporting to extreme meteorological-oceanographic events in current and future scenarios. Considering coastal oceanographic modelling – wave overtopping; risk assessment; and adaptation strategies.

A. Rita Carrasco is an Assistant Researcher at CIMA/University of Algarve since 2018. She holds a MSc degree in Water and Coastal Management (2006) and a PhD in Marine, Earth and Environmental Sciences, specialized in coastal dynamics (2012). She has been 100% devoted to scientific research in coastal dynamics, although recent research interests triggered the physical and ecological interactions occurring in the coastal zone. She is a well-established researcher in coastal ecosystems with a focus on coastal processes and management, and coastal ecosystem conservation, in a transdisciplinary context. She is currently responsible for the scientific supervisor of 3 MSc students. She was involved in past in several international and national scientific projects (since 2003), covering a wide range of scientific topics such as beach morphodynamics, estuarine evolution, inlet dynamics, storm impacts, and coastal modelling. She is currently participating in three national projects about coastal dynamics and in a LIFE project about ecosystems conservation, as an investigator.

Liliana Vieira Pinheiro is a Civil Engineer with a master degree and PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Currently is postdoctoral research fellow at the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering. She has more than 15 years of experience in the fields of Maritime Hydraulics and Computational Fluid Mechanics, more specifically in port and coastal engineering studies. Prolific intervention in scientific and technical activities, namely in a wide range of R&D activities and contract studies, including numerical and physical modeling studies of wave propagation and deformation, interaction of waves with floating structures, numerical and physical modeling of moored ships and development of port management tools and forecasting and warning systems associated with navigation in port areas. Extensive experience in on-site and laboratory measurements using various technologies and instrumentation. Participated in about 30 funded R&D projects with national and international funding and more than 20 consultancy research projects for public and private clients, worldwide. Authored/co-authored more than 20 papers in international journals, more than 75 papers in proceedings of international conferences and 65 in proceedings of national conferences, and 48 technical and scientific reports.