Astrid Blom

Profile

Astrid Blom's research focuses on the (long-term) morphodynamics of sand-gravel rivers, as well as mass conservation models for mixed sediment that account for the stochastics of bedform geometry and sorting mechanisms within dunes. PhD student Victor Chavarrias is analyzing elliptic behavior of the St Venant-Hirano equations and working on techniques to solve the ellipticity problem. PhD student Liselot Arkesteijn is working on the development of a 2D numerical tool suitable for long-term mixed-sediment problems. PhD student Clara Orrú is working on the development of measurement techniques (based on image analysis) aimed at providing detailed measurements of spatial and temporal changes in the bed surface mean grain size in sand-gravel laboratory experiments, as well as the size stratification in a sand-gravel deposit. Former postdoctoral researcher Guglielmo Stecca worked on the mathematical and numerical modeling of sand-gravel morphodynamics. Former PhD student Rolien van der Mark provided a model predicting the stochastics of bedform geometry (Van der Mark et al, 2008). Astrid visited the US National Centre for Earth-Surface Dynamics (NCED) at the University of Minnesota in 2000 and 2004. The combination of analytical and numerical modelling with flume experiments, which enables detailed testing of new mathematical tools, is the basis of her research.

• 2015 - Water2015 grant “Long-term bed degradation in rivers: causes and mitigation”
• 2014 - Funding for two PhD projects in research programme RiverCare
• 2011 - NWO/ASPASIA grant (015.007.051)
• 2010 - Grant ‘Dr Ir Cornelis Lely Stichting’
• 2004 - VENI-grant ‘Dune Stochastics in River Morphodynamics’ (TCB.6286)

Education

- CIE4345: River Engineering (4 etcs)
- CT1140: Fluid Mechanics I (3 etcs)
- Coordination for CT3000-09: BSc final theses (10 etcs)