About Panos Athanasiou

Dr. Panos Athanasiou is a coastal engineer and researcher who works at the interface of science and decision-making, helping translate the complexities of coastal hazards and flood risk into clearer, more actionable information. With a background in civil and hydraulic engineering, he earned his MSc with honours from Delft University of Technology and completed his PhD at the University of Twente, where he focused on large-scale coastal hazard assessments, and the modelling of shoreline change and dune erosion under sea level rise and extreme storms.

Panos specializes in the development of user-friendly, scalable workflows for coastal hazard and flood risk analysis, bridging physical modelling, artificial intelligence, and user interfaces. He has contributed to the design and implementation of tools—most notably as a core developer of FloodAdapt, a decision-support tool that empowers governments and communities to plan adaptation strategies for flooding. His technical expertise spans coastal modelling, flood impact analysis, machine learning, and geospatial analysis. Beyond tools, he contributes to global datasets and modelling frameworks that inform both international policy and local planning.

Through his work, Panos actively contributes to two of Deltares’ long-term moonshots: making the world’s population safer from flooding, and ensuring that deltas remain habitable in the face of rising seas and rapid urbanization. Whether developing global EO-based coastal datasets, designing neural networks to simulate dune erosion, or working with cities on adaptation planning, he’s driven by one goal: to turn knowledge into decisions that reduce risk and increase resilience.

Panos has co-authored several publications in international peer-reviewed journals (such as Nature Climate Change and Earth System Science Data) and conference proceedings, covering topics such as coastal hazards, global flood risk, and climate adaptation. In addition to his research work, he regularly supervises MSc students and contributes to academic teaching.

Tools:

• Floodadapt
• Delft-FIAT