A new project involving the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) will cut the time and cost involved in running computer models of projected flooding to the year 2100.
It will develop new modelling methods to enable assessments of a much wider range of potential flood scenarios than is currently possible, taking into account how factors such as local land use and soil type affect a flood’s behaviour and severity.
This will inform solutions that better match the specific needs of different parts of the UK, enabling government agencies to provide more targeted protection against climate change and avoid needless expenditure on overengineered solutions.
The three-year initiative, involving Edinburgh and Bristol universities and UKCEH, is receiving £1.2m of funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
UKCEH scientists will investigate whether we are currently underestimating future flood risk, and establish the differences between computer-based climate models that are high-resolution but expensive to run, and those that are simpler but less detailed.
Dr Steven Cole of UKCEH explains: “We will be developing quicker, hybrid methods to assess future flood risk that blend model outputs and statistical methods to generate many more plausible future flood events.
“The new assessment framework will provide a more complete picture of how flood risk is predicted to change and where, but with reduced computational effort, thus paving the way for more informed flood resilience investment.”
The project team will produce this new flood risk assessment framework in conjunction with researchers, consultants and government agencies.
• The new project was announced alongside a new Floods and Droughts Infrastructure (FDRI), led by the Natural Environment Research Council and UKCEH. See our separate news story for details.