‘As the impacts of climate hazards intensify, I think more people will come to recognise that we are very much part of the natural world, not separate from it.’

University College Cork PhD student Kevin Walsh is the lead researcher on a major study that has developed the first national map in Ireland highlighting the country’s exposure to climate hazards such as rising sea levels and storm surges.

Walsh is a geoscientist and researcher with the university’s Digital Environmental Technology for Enhanced Coastal Zone Management (Detect) project. He holds a bachelor’s degree in geology and a master’s research degree specialising in geospatial analysis and offshore wind energy – both from UCC.

I decided to get into research in 2023, after working in industry as a geologist for about six years. Having lived most of my life on the west coast of Ireland, I feel a deep connection with the sea and wanted to align my career with my personal interests.

There was a lot of excitement at the time around development of offshore wind farms around Ireland, and I was keen to upskill to get into this sector. With the help of my supervisors, I managed to get funding for my project from Research Ireland under the postgraduate scholarship programme. The project focused on creating optimised submarine cable routes from potential offshore wind farm sites off the south and west coasts of Ireland.

After finishing up my master’s of research, one of my supervisors offered me a spot as a PhD student in the Detect project, which is what I’m working on now.

[The Detect] project is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, with the overall goal of developing methods for monitoring, modelling and management of coastal regions.

For my research, my first objective was to complete a national assessment of coastal exposure to climate hazards around Ireland. This involved combining aspects of the physical nature of the coast with the climatic and metocean variables which can lead to hazardous conditions.

We employed an index-based approach, which provides a relative exposure score and exposure rank to coastal points around the Republic of Ireland. We assessed how many people reside in proximity to coastal areas deemed ‘very high exposure’, and highlighted sites of cultural heritage within these zones as well. The study also showcased the potential coastal protection offered by coastal habitats around Ireland, such as dunes, saltmarshes and seagrass meadows.

Based on this work, we selected five ‘very high exposure’ sites across Clare and Cork to study in more detail. We have been mapping these sites using multi-spectral drones on a monthly basis since October 2025. Using photogrammetric structure-from-motion processing and real-time kinematic positioning, we are able to produce highly accurate, centimetre-scale elevation models of each site.

These will be used to detect changes to each beach and surrounding areas, in an effort to determine how each site changes seasonally and how they respond to storms.

We are also seeking to test methods of deriving shallow water bathymetry from drone imagery and video footage.

Traditional sonar methods used to map this zone are costly and time-intensive, and other methods such as LiDAR can be limited by water turbidity. This has led to the so-called ‘white ribbon’ – an unmapped zone along the coast where the topography of the seafloor (the bathymetry) and the onshore topography meet.

Mapping this zone is important for many reasons, such as navigation, habitat analysis and water safety. It’s especially important in our project, where the ultimate goal is to create 3D models of each of our sites, which can then be used in CFD (computational fluid dynamics) modelling. This modelling will enable us to create digital twins of our coastal sites, and test how each area might respond to future climate scenarios.

Coastal zones are incredibly important areas for humanity. This is especially true for Ireland, where all our major cities are on or directly connected to the coast. There have always been hazards associated with living in such close proximity to the ocean, especially on the Irish coast – which gets some very intense storms in the autumn and winter months.

Our research into coastal exposure helps to reveal where the hazards from these storms are concentrated, and why, providing an important screening tool for coastal residents or coastal zone managers.

There is also evidence that hazards like erosion and coastal flooding are worsening due to climate change, and sea-level rise is very likely to exacerbate the adverse impacts of these hazards in the near future. Our research offers coastal managers a resource in which they can plan ahead now, rather than just react in the future.

One aspect of our research which I hope could make an impact is the highlighting of the protective functions of coastal habitats. Traditional approaches to coastal protection often involve ‘hard’ engineered structures like seawalls, rock armour or groynes.

While these can provide local protection, they are resource-intensive, and can lead to negative unintended consequences, like beach narrowing or habitat degradation. They also require upkeep, repair and, in the end, will only last for a certain number of years.

Coastal habitats like dunes and saltmarshes, on the other hand, can recover from storm events, adapt to sea-level rise and naturally stabilise the shoreline. However, they can only do this if they are in a good condition, which unfortunately is not the case for the majority of Ireland’s natural habitats. Our study aimed to show the potential increase in exposure in areas if those habitats are lost, providing evidence for their protection or restoration.

We also hope to demonstrate the value of drones as a surveying tool for coastal managers. Traditional coastal monitoring methods tend to be time-intensive and require specialised training and equipment.

Drones offer a lightweight, cost-effective and easy-to-use alternative, while still producing highly accurate maps. We also hope to show the potential for drone-derived bathymetry in Irish waters, helping to fill in some of the ‘white ribbon’ gaps around our coast.

The data-mining aspect of the project was certainly a challenge at the beginning. For example, we don’t have precise shoreline change rates for the whole country, nor do we have a comprehensive database of the extents of some habitats, such as kelp forests.

That being said, there is a lot of work and research ongoing to answer these questions, so hopefully soon we’ll have a better picture of the true nature of Ireland’s coast.

In terms of fieldwork, given that we’re looking at sites on the west and south-west of the country, the main challenge is the weather. Drone surveys can’t be completed in the rain, in excessive wind speeds, and our bathymetry research requires calm waters, captured at the right time of day to reduce glare from the sun.

Getting all these elements to line up to capture optimal data is pretty difficult, so our windows for surveying are pretty tight. And no matter how well you plan, the weather will always have other ideas!

After we published our study and resulting online map on coastal exposure to climate hazards around Ireland, a common question I’ve been asked by media or members of the public is, ‘Should we be worried?’. This seems to be down to the way the results were displayed, with the highest 20pc of exposure scores given the rank of ‘very high exposure’.

These represent the places which may be impacted by either erosion, coastal flooding or damage from extreme winds. In some places, it may be one of those hazards – in others, it may be all of them. The nature and severity of impacts will also vary from place to place and depending on storm conditions.

So our study shows where is exposed, but there are many other elements which will determine whether a particular region is at risk. For coastal flooding, for example, two houses next to each other located in a ‘very high exposure’ area might have very different risk levels.

One might have an effective flood barrier and the other might not, so the one without it is higher risk. The residents of that house may also be in a vulnerable demographic or socioeconomic group, so again, that increases their risk relative to their neighbour’s house – despite both being located near a ‘very high exposure’ coastline.

Understanding the vulnerability of coastal regions, and their associated risk levels, is what tells us how worried individuals living on the coast should be. This requires in-depth analysis of local areas, something which wasn’t feasible for our project to achieve at a national scale. Our study can, however, provide valuable information to help local authorities prioritise investment in certain areas, or inform planning for future coastal developments.

I’d love to see more research into the protective role of specific coastal habitats around Ireland. Our research gives a potential protective score to certain types of habitat, but the actual protection in terms of wave attenuation and shoreline stabilisation will vary between individual habitats and under different storm conditions.

Getting more information on where these habitats are currently protecting coastlines would provide a great evidence base for investment in nature-based solutions for coastal protection around Ireland.

Lately I’ve been alternating from feeling really optimistic to feeling a bit hopeless. On the good days, I see that people are really starting to take notice of the realities of human-induced climate change. There’s a real appetite to know what can be done about it, and that’s exactly what our research is trying to help answer.

On the tougher days, though, seeing the climate scepticism online, the lack of commitment to climate targets from governments and the ongoing degradation of our natural environment can be really disheartening.

As a geoscientist, I sometimes feel like people have become disconnected from nature. But as the impacts of climate hazards intensify, I think more people will come to recognise that we are very much part of the natural world, not separate from it.

Many coastal communities in Ireland are already acutely aware of this – plenty have witnessed worsening storm impacts within their own lifetimes. Ultimately, how we act to mitigate the worst effects of climate change is a political choice, so my hope is that we can reach a genuine consensus on the value of protecting our natural environment before it’s too late.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.