S (Sarra) Kchouk MSc

I am partisan of research-action towards rural populations exposed to natural hazards as I am driven by the motivation to study about and for vulnerable populations and connecting natural and social sciences.

My academic background is in natural sciences. I hold an engineering degree in agronomy from the National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia and a Master’s degree in environmental engineering from Agrocampus Ouest Rennes, France. First experiences then made me realize the strong influence of socio-economic drivers in the exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards. This led me to work on projects mobilizing systemic and integrated approaches. In Tunisia, on the valorization of research findings, in the field of water and soil conservation, with a collective of farmers, researchers and policymakers. In Brazil, on the issue of drought-impacts on small agricultural holdings and adaptative strategies of farmers.

Since June 2019, I am enrolled in a PhD at Wageningen University, under the supervision of Dr. Pieter van Oel (WRM) and Dr. Lieke Melsen (HWM). Through this PhD, it is sought to develop and test indicators depicting the extent that the water uses in Northeastern Brazil are contributing to socioeconomic and environmental drought impacts. Such local and contextualized indicators aim to link water accounting data to tangible decision-making for water and drought managers.

This PhD is conducted within the “3ddd project: Diagnosing drought for dealing with drought in Toolbox for increasing drought preparedness of actors in water and climate governance, starting from north-eastern Brazil”.