Christian FERRARIN

Senior researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences (ISMAR) of the National Research Council (CNR) based in Venice. Master's degree in Environmental Sciences at Ca' Foscari in 2001. PhD in Environmental Sciences at Ca' Foscari University with a doctoral research thesis entitled "A sediment transport model for the Lagoon of Venice".

My research interests concern coastal oceanography through analysing long-term timeseries and developing and applying hydrodynamic and wave numerical models. My research is mainly focused on the study of 1) the wave, current and sediment interaction in shallow areas, 2) the dynamics, frequency, magnitude, predictability, and trends of extreme oceanographic events, such as storm tides, storm surges, Medicanes, coastal flooding, saltwater intrusion and coastal marine heat waves, 3) the coastal and estuarine dispersion of substances and mixing in river-sea systems, 4) the past and future climate variability of the processes driving the dynamics mentioned above. I have been involved in numerous national and international projects dealing with extremely high sea levels, coastal modelling and river-sea processes. I’m actively developing the System of HydrodYnamic Finite Element Modules (SHYFEM, https://github.com/shyfemcm/shyfemcm) open-source community hydrodynamic model.

He has experience in coordinating multidisciplinary research groups and is involved in international/national project proposals and development. He is currently scientific responsible for HEU project DANUBE4all (Restoration of the Danube River Basin Waters for Ecosystems and People from Mountains to Coast), HEU project iNNO SED (iNNOvative SEDiment management in the Danube River Basin), ESA project MEDICANES (Earth Observations as a cornerstone to the understanding and predicting tropical-like cyclone risk in the Mediterranean), bilateral project (CNR and Royal Society of Edinburgh) OMBRES (Oceanographic iMpacts of Blue Renewable Energy in coastal regionS), EU LIFE project CLIMAX PO (CLIMate Adaptation for the PO river basin district). Scientific director of the collaboration agreement with the Po River Basin District Authority for the “Numerical modeling of the Po River Delta, including the analysis of the interaction between the fluvial and coastal hydraulic dynamics and the description of the salt intrusion phenomenon”.

National Scientific Qualification (Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale, ASN) for the Academic Discipline 04/A4 - GEOFISICA for Full Professor (prima fascia) obtained in March 2025.