Dominic Sett is a Research Associate for the FloodAdapt project, aiming at integrating ecosystem-based approaches into flood risk management for adaptive and sustainable urban development in the city of Hue, Central Viet Nam.
Within this project, Dominic mainly contributes to the flood risks and impact assessment, as well as identifying and evaluating flood risk management and adaptation options. For the latter, he particularly focuses on assessing behavioural factors to explain motivation for engaging in and acceptance of flood protection measures.
Before joining the FloodAdapt project, Dominic was involved in the Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) project at UNU-EHS from 2020-2022, developing a national-level strategy to integrate climate change adaptation, disaster risk management and social protection efforts in Indonesia, to strengthen the resilience of communities. He was also involved in the InsuRisk project on assessing disaster risk and readiness for insurance solutions from 2019-2022 and led the writing of the 2021 InsuRisk report on disaster risk, social protection and readiness for insurance solutions. In addition, he also supported different local and international projects as student assistant, joining UNU-EHS in 2018, including on vulnerability assessment to heat stress in Bonn (ZURES) and end-user resilience to critical infrastructure failure in Germany (KIRMin).
Dominic has (co-)authored several policy and research publications and engaged in outreach campaigns for different research projects. Apart from research, he is also engaged in teaching, most notably in Master’s programmes at UNU-MERIT, where he also acts as course coordinator for UNU-EHS input, and different Master’s programmes at TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences. Besides, he gave guest lectures in international universities and increasingly engages in thesis and junior researcher supervision activities.
Dominic holds a Bachelor’s in Geography at the University of Bonn, and a Master of Science degree in ‘Geography of Environmental Risks and Human Security’ offered by UNU-EHS and the University of Bonn. He graduated in 2019 and wrote his thesis on the role of social-psychological factors for the adoption of rainwater harvesting as a measure of adapting to water scarcity in Cape Town, for which he was awarded the Young Professionals “Preparedness 2030” Award by the German Committee for Disaster Risk Reduction (DKKV).
