UQ4FM: Uncertainty Quantification for Flood Modelling
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Engineering
Abstract
Currently 6.4 million people, as well as critical infrastructure such as road, rail and power networks, are exposed to flood risk across the UK, and this is expected to rise to 10.8 million people and encompass further critical assets by 2080. The 2020 National Risk Register places flooding behind only pandemics and large-scale attacks as the most significant risks to the UK. Despite this, routine flood risk assessments for planning, development and adaptation purposes use deterministic methods to assess flood hazard, using hydro-dynamic process-based models which are computationally heavy (~hours to ~weeks run time). This established process fails to acknowledge, quantify and capture the cascading uncertainties inherent in the process, which manifest from a wide range of sources including climate scenarios, flow gauging, extreme value estimates and hydrological models. Under estimation of current and future flood hazard could lead to what the Government's Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) terms 'lock-in' and under-engineered adaptation measures, whilst over-estimation could lead to financially non-viable schemes and inappropriate development.
The flood analytics industry must urgently move towards probabilistic methods which acknowledge and quantify cascading uncertainties; but this requires yet-to-be developed algorithms which capture the critical uncertainties within the process and reduce the computational burden associated with forward Uncertainty Quantification (UQ).
This project will deliver the speed up required to robustly assess flood hazard uncertainty through the development of novel and bespoke uncertainty quantification algorithms for inundation modelling; and by demonstrating their applicability to the prediction of current and future flood hazards at a range of scales, incorporating a wide range of uncertainties in the modelling chain. Success will deliver the step change needed by the flood analytics industry to embrace the necessary transition to UQ assessment, thus placing the UK at the forefront of flooding research, and future proofing climate change adaptation.
The flood analytics industry must urgently move towards probabilistic methods which acknowledge and quantify cascading uncertainties; but this requires yet-to-be developed algorithms which capture the critical uncertainties within the process and reduce the computational burden associated with forward Uncertainty Quantification (UQ).
This project will deliver the speed up required to robustly assess flood hazard uncertainty through the development of novel and bespoke uncertainty quantification algorithms for inundation modelling; and by demonstrating their applicability to the prediction of current and future flood hazards at a range of scales, incorporating a wide range of uncertainties in the modelling chain. Success will deliver the step change needed by the flood analytics industry to embrace the necessary transition to UQ assessment, thus placing the UK at the forefront of flooding research, and future proofing climate change adaptation.
Organisations
- University of Edinburgh (Lead Research Organisation)
- Natural Environment Research Council (Co-funder)
- Kaya Consulting LTD (Collaboration)
- University of Stirling (Collaboration)
- Arup Group (Collaboration)
- ENVIRONMENT AGENCY (Project Partner)
- Kaya Consulting Limited (Project Partner)
- SCOTTISH ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AGENCY (Project Partner)
- Fathom (Project Partner)
- Arup Group (Project Partner)
Publications

Aitken G
(2024)
Advanced Uncertainty Quantification for Flood Inundation Modelling
in Water

McClymont K
(2024)
Creating transformational change in flood resilience strategies
in WIREs Water
Title | Software tool |
Description | The LISFLOOD simulation outputs, figure data, numerical codes and files f are available at https://github.com/asiripat/Inverurie UQ. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2025 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | This will become open source once published |
Description | Collaboration with Arup |
Organisation | Arup Group |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Interest in making the UQ methods fit for purpose for industry - collaboration with Arup through meetings and agreement to second a team member |
Collaborator Contribution | Active participation through secondment model and through providing case studies |
Impact | None yet - early stage |
Start Year | 2024 |
Description | Collaboration with HydroNation Chair programme |
Organisation | University of Stirling |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Development of new bids furthering the climate extreme research: NERC funded MOT4Rivers and new proposals. The Uncertainty Quantification methods are of significant interest to HNC |
Collaborator Contribution | Co-creation of proposals |
Impact | MOT4Rivers (NE/X01620X/1) |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Kaya Consulting |
Organisation | Kaya Consulting LTD |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | We have collaborated to develop a number of industry relevant research frameworks. This includes the development of uncertainty methods which could be used in industry and the exploration of 'big data' for the use with in flood vulnerability assessments. This work is ongoing. We have developed research in the uncertainty methods fields and in to use household level vulnerability data. |
Collaborator Contribution | The inkind contributions from industry is in the form of time from the company Director - who is keen to see direct benefit from applied research for furthering understanding in flood risk [exposure and vulnerability] assessments. |
Impact | A paper in 2018 coauthored on uncertainty and one on vulnerability is pending. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Chair of Panel |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Royal Statistical Society Edinburgh local group - chaired panel on statistics for tackling the climate crisis. 27 November 2024 (UQ for policy) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Invited speaker for Peace and Justice Group |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Invited speaker to discuss the implications of recent flood events and climate change influences on our weather, |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Mathematical Models for Twenty-First Century Decisions: A Mathematics for Humanity workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Invited talk about emulation for uncertainty quantification at the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Presentation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | November 24 - invited talk for Environment Agency - covered SEPA and NRW as well |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Stakeholder meeting (February 25) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Group meeting updating progress to a wide group of stakeholders |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
Description | Video |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Short video on the importance of quantifying uncertainty for flood risk planning |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |