Alessia Matanó

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Alessia Matanó is a junior researcher working in the Water and Climate Risk group at the Institute for Environmental Studies at VU Amsterdam. Her work focuses on drought-flood compound risks in Eastern and Southern Africa. She is studying how compound crises evolve and assessing whether current multi-dimensional risk monitoring systems could support decision-makers. The research will support the World Bank in its effort to develop a Global Crisis Risk Platform by conducting a retrospective country case-study.

She has a background in hydrology and water resources management from the Technical University of Delft (MSc) and in environmental engineering from the University of Naples (MSc). In the last three years, she worked for international research centres where she focused on the development of decision support tools for water management within humanitarian crisis and on flood forecasting, early warning system and disaster risk management in Sub Saharan African Countries.

Before joining VU, Alessia worked as junior researcher/consultant at CIMA Research Foundation, where she was part of a multidisciplinary team working on flood hazard mapping and flood and drought early warning systems in Western Africa, mainly under UNDRR, UNEP and WMO projects.

Her research interest lies in the intersection between geoscience and society. To date, she is studying the interactions and feedbacks between hydrological extremes and human behaviours, focusing mainly on migration, food security and conflict.