Coastal flood forecasting

Tozer, N.P. and Saulter, A. and Hawkes, P. (2007) Coastal flood forecasting. In: 42nd Defra Flood and Coastal Management Conference, 3-5 July 2007, University of York, UK.

PDF HRPP318_Coastal_Flood_Forecasting.pdf Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB)

Abstract

Coastal flooding affects people and assets in many parts of the UK. Advance warning of impending flooding, in the form of coastal flood forecasts, provides vital information for managing the response to coastal flooding, allowing appropriate actions to be taken to reduce the risk of damage to people and property. There is a need to balance accuracy, through increasingly sophisticated approaches, with efficiency, i.e. providing accurate forecasts with sufficient lead time. The traditional approach for coastal flood forecasting is based on deterministic modelling using Met Office forecasts of wind, offshore wave and water level from its standard suite of atmospheric, wave and surge models. Applications typically use local area wave models to represent the transformation of waves from offshore to nearshore locations, taking into account the local bathymetric detail not represented in the Met Office models. Subsequent response or pathway models (Defra / Environment Agency 2003) are used to provide, for example, a single estimate of how wave overtopping evolves in time, but gives no indication of the likelihood or uncertainty of a particular event. A series of site specific coastal forecast services have been set up and delivered over the last decade. This paper describes two coastal flood forecasting services based on a deterministic modelling approach. One is an operational system for Network Rail Scotland and the other has been set up for a property development in Cornwall.

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