Flood Risk Problems
Flood risk problems
The programme is tackling three main flood risk problems.
Assessing
Assessing the probability, and associated risks, of extreme weather events causing flooding from minutes to weeks ahead.
Research will help improve our knowledge of:
- ensemble prediction methods
- what happens when models are scaled up or down
- what happens when outputs from models are aggregated or disaggregated, and how that affects our certainty when making forecasts
- the science that underpins warning systems
Understanding
Understandind how natural and human-caused climate change will alter the intensity and frequency of flooding, and associated weather regimes, over the next century.
The programme will investigate what limits our ability to predict flood risks seasons and decades ahead.
Developing
Developing integrated clouds-to-catchment-to-coast models to help predict floods.
A model of the coastal zone should involve river catchments, an urban conurbation, mixed land-use areas, an estuary and adjacent coastal-shelf ocean. The programme is investigating such modelling frameworks to help understand when floods will occur and how they can be forecasted. The programme will use the models to assess holistic flooding scenarios, such as when storm surges and heavy rainfall occur simultaneously. Clouds-to-catchment-to-coast models will be an important output from the programme, and will require good integration across the programme's research projects.
