Nicholls is the Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research[1] and a professor of climate adaptation at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom.[2] Prior to this, he was professor of coastal engineering at the University of Southampton from 2004 to 2019.[3] He was professor at the Flood Hazard Research Centre at Middlesex University from 2000 to 2003[4] and held positions as a reader and senior lecturer at the same university from 1996 to 2000. He was a research fellow at the Laboratory for Coastal Research, University of Maryland in the United States from 1990 to 1994 and was a research fellow at the Institute of Marine Studies, University of Plymouth from 1987 to 1990.
He was educated at the University of Southampton where he was awarded a PhD in coastal engineering in 1985 analysing coastal erosion in and around Hurst Spit on the south coast of England”.
Much of his work has focused on responding to sea-level rise and climate change, necessitating an interdisciplinary approach. A distinctive dimension has been consideration of the coastal zone in system terms, facilitating policy analysis. He has led a series of large multi-million pound projects including the Tyndall Coastal Simulator, the NERC-funded iCOASST (Evolving coastal geomorphic sediment systems), the ESPA Deltas[5][6] and DECCMA projects on deltas, mainly in Bangladesh.[7][8] He has engaged in a number of pioneering broad-scale assessments of sea-level rise issues and is a founding member of the Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment (DIVA) Model which has enabled global analysis.[9]
He was a lead author of the second (1995) and third (2001) assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), convening lead author (with Poh Poh Wong, Singapore) of the fourth IPCC Assessment (published 2007) and review editor on the fifth IPCC Assessment (published 2014). He has also contributed to several IPCC Special Reports as a Lead and a Contributing Author, most recently to the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate published in 2019.[10]
He currently leads the OpenCLIM (Open CLimate IMpacts modelling framework Project)[11][12] and contributes to the European PROTECT and CoCliCo Projects on coastal risks and climate services, as well as the REST-COAST project focused on coastal restoration.
He co-led the World Climate Research Programme Sea-Level Rise Grand Challenge[13] from 2014 to 2022 to deliver sea-level science to support better coastal impact[14] and adaptation assessment, organising the Sea Level 2017 and Sea Level 2022 Conferences in New York and Singapore, respectively.[13] He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers/COPRI Coastal Engineering Research Council.[15]
In 2007, Robert Nicholls was the convening lead author for the coastal chapter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change[16] (IPCC) fourth assessment report.[17] That year, the IPCC was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.[18]
Nicholls was also awarded the Roger Revelle Medal in 2008 for outstanding contributions to ocean sciences awarded by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Executive Council. Robert has made it to the list of Web of Science's Highly Cited Researchers every year since 2019,[19] ranking in the top 1% by citations of scientists and social scientists. In 2021, Robert was part of the ‘Hot list’ of the world's 1,000 most influential climate scientists by Reuters.[20]
Nicholls, R.J., Lincke, D., Hinkel, J. et al. (2021) A global analysis of subsidence, relative sea-level change and coastal flood exposure. Nature Climate Change, 11, 338–342. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-00993-z
Nicholls, R.J., Adger, W.N., Hutton, C.W. and Hanson, S.E. (Eds) (2019) Deltas in the Anthropocene, Palgrave, ISBN 978-3-030-23516-1, 282pp.
Nicholls, R.J., Hutton, C.W., Adger, W.N., Rahman, M., Salehin, M. and Hanson, S.E. (Eds) (2018) Ecosystem services in deltas - Integrated assessment for policy analysis, Palgrave, ISBN 978-3-319-71093-8, 539pp.
Nicholls, R.J., Dawson, R. and Day, S. (Eds.) (2015) Broad scale coastal simulation: new techniques to understand and manage shorelines in the third millennium, Springer, ISBN 978-9400752573.
Nicholls, R.J. (2004) Coastal flooding and wetland loss in the 21st century: changes under the SRES climate and socio-economic scenarios. Global Environmental Change, 14(1), 69-86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2003.10.00
Nicholls, R.J., Hoozemans, F.M. and Marchand, M. (1999) Increasing flood risk and wetland losses due to global sea-level rise: regional and global analyses. Global Environmental Change, 9, S69-S87. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0959-3780(99)00019-9
Nicholls, R.J. and Leatherman, S.P. (eds.) (1995) Potential implications of accelerated sea-level rise on developing countries. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 14, 323pp.
