Sara Mehryar

Sara joined the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in October 2018 as a research officer (post-doc). She is working on Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance (ZFRA) project and her focus is on flood risk governance and resilience decision-making in the context of OECD urban areas. She is interested in the role of different stakeholders and institutions in the process of climate change adaptation.
Background
Prior to joining LSE, Sara completed her PhD in Urban and Regional Planning at ITC, University of Twente, Netherlands. In her thesis, she developed participatory policy analysis methods for climate change adaptation and applied them in the case of water scarcity in Iran. Sara also holds a Master of Urbanism from the University of Delft, Netherlands and a BS in Architecture from University of Guilan in Iran.
Research interests
- Climate change adaptation
- Urban flood risk governance
- Resilience flood governance
- Human perception and individual behavior
- Institutional decision-making
Research
Research - 2020
Flood risk is increasing across the world due to climate change and socio-economic development, calling for a shift from traditional... Read more

We call for attention to climate change research as a domain of application for multiagent technologies. The multiagent nature of... Read more

Social-ecological systems (SESs) i.e., systems linking human behavior and environmental dynamics, are characterized as complex, dynamic, and heterogeneous systems. A... Read more

One of the main challenges in Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) is to model agents’ preferences and behavioral rules such that the... Read more

This paper explores the role of national laws in determining the nature of flood risk management (FRM) and in particular the ability to increase flood resilience in the context of climate change. The authors therefore call for a shift in FRM away from post-event activism towards forward-looking planning through an anticipatory resilience approach. Read more

Research - 2019
Abstract Policy making for complex (SESs) is a multi-factorial and multi-stakeholder decision making process. Therefore, proper policy simulation in a... Read more

The authors of this paper develop an integrated modelling methodology combining an Agent-Based Model with Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping and use it to simulate impacts of policy options addressing the problems of water scarcity for a farming community in Rafsanjan, Iran. Read more

Policy
Policy - 2020
Part of a comprehensive review of flood risk management in mature economies, this report looks at the system in England, where insurance take-up is high and climate change is taken into account. Read more

Policy - 2019
This submission was made to the Environment Agency's consultation on its draft strategy for flood and coastal risk management in England, and draws on the Grantham Research Institute's work and expertise over many years in this area. Read more

This paper summarises the Institute's submission to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ call for evidence on policy direction to prepare the UK for flooding and coastal erosion, drawing on a decade of work by the Grantham Research Institute with the insurance industry and policymakers addressing issues around climate change and adaptation. Read more

News
News - 2020
Although current risk reduction attention is on COVID-19, climate change-related hazards such as flooding continue to have impacts around the world. This commentary evaluates new announcements on flood protection for England and reports on work by the Grantham Research Institute and partners on the Suffolk coast. Read more
