Civil engineer focused on resilient water infrastructure
Spent the last decade designing and retrofitting stormwater systems for coastal cities. Here because the next decade of climate adaptation is going to be community-led, and I want to put my plans where my mouth is.
Built FEMA- and Deltares-style hydrodynamic models for the Port of Rotterdam expansion.
Lead engineer on three coastal-city retrofit projects. Chartered with NEN and ICE.
Cities worldwide are committing to carbon neutrality, but the gap between political targets and physical reality is vast. Decarbonizing urban heating, transport, construction, and waste systems within a generation requires coordinated action across sectors that have never worked together at this speed.
Every year, millions of tons of waste end up in landfills. We need innovative solutions to reduce household waste and promote recycling.
Forests across Europe and beyond are experiencing accelerating decline driven by climate change. Drought, rising temperatures, insect epidemics, and fungal diseases are killing trees at unprecedented rates across multiple species, turning forests from carbon sinks into carbon emitters.
Distribute locally-manufactured ceramic pot filters that cost under $10 and last 2-3 years. These filters remove 99.9% of bacteria and are already used successfully across Southeast Asia and Central America. Pair with a community education program on maintenance.
Factory-built modular housing units can be produced 30-50% faster and 10-20% cheaper than traditional construction. Units are built in controlled environments (no weather delays), transported to site, and assembled in days. Companies like Factory OS and Katerra have demonstrated this at scale.
Offer residents a financial incentive to permanently deregister a car, paid as credits redeemable for public transit passes, bike-sharing, car-sharing, and cargo bike rentals rather than cash. This ensures the incentive shifts behavior rather than just subsidizing a transaction. Basel's Umweltprämie (CHF 1,500, launched September 2025, 400 slots) is a working pilot of this approach. Helsinki's mobility-as-a-service platform demonstrates the broader ecosystem needed to make car-free living genuinely convenient.
Create a public-private platform that provides SMEs with simplified carbon footprint assessment tools, pre-negotiated group rates for retrofits and fleet electrification, peer learning networks organized by sector, and a single point of contact for navigating subsidies and regulations. The platform aggregates demand across hundreds of small businesses to achieve economies of scale that no single SME could access alone. Basel's Klimaplattform der Wirtschaft, with 800+ member companies and quarterly business lunches since 2014, is a working model of this approach.