Is flood risk increasing? Exploring the relationships between atmospheric circulation, extreme rainfall and flooding
Lead Research Organisation:
Newcastle University
Department Name: Civil Engineering and Geosciences
Abstract
There is now a broad scientific consensus that the global climate is changing in ways that are likely to have a large impact on our society and the natural environment over the coming decades. Global warming, and its impact on extreme weather events, may have a profound influence on the way we live in the future. Recent extreme weather events, such as the unusual number of hurricanes in the US 2005 hurricane season, the unprecedented flooding in central Europe in summer 2002, the tragic loss of life in the European heatwave the following summer, or the severity of flooding in the UK during autumn 2000, have been said to be a possible impact of global warming by the media. This has made us focus our attention on the possible impacts of future climate change on our society. However, how can we predict how future global warming may change the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and their impacts if we do not understand how current local scale climatic variability is governed by the larger-scale atmosphere and how these processes may change in the future? This fellowship will examine these and other fundamental research questions through collaboration with international experts in the US at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Europe and through links with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the Environment Agency in the UK. This fellowship will examine the links between large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, local scale extreme rainfall and their impact on flooding using the UK as a test-bed. The recent government-funded Foresight project suggests that flooding costs the UK £2.2 billion annually; £800 million on flood defence and £1.4 billion average damage. This may rise to somewhere from £2 to £27 billion by the 2080s, depending on how we manage greenhouse gas emissions in the future. Whilst changes through time in UK flooding are reasonably well characterised, changes in the spatial extent and severity of flooding are not. Additionally, we do not understand the atmospheric mechanisms that cause severe rainfall events and thus flooding, how these may be currently changing and how these may further change under global warming. The UK is an ideal location for this study as it has a wealth of hydrological, climatological and meteorological data, and the study will concentrate firstly on an understanding of the climatic processes that contribute to flood risk UK-wide. It will then use two case studies, the river Ouse in Yorkshire and the river Eden in Cumbria, to look at the more detailed response to climate variability within a river catchment using a hydrological modelling framework. Although the study has a UK focus, the results will be applicable to other parts of the world, through an understanding of the processes that combine to cause flooding. Finally, using this new understanding of the complex atmospheric processes that cause extreme rainfall events and flooding, I will develop a method to investigate the impacts of future climate change on the risk of flooding in the UK. This methodology will be developed using the latest regional and global climate model outputs and will contribute to the development of a new probabilistic framework for climate change impacts in Europe and new tools that can be used by managers to design flood defence systems that are robust to the impacts of climate change. These will be necessary for the future management of flood risk in UK catchments under climate change; as indicated by the UK government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) recent report 'Making Space for Water'.
Organisations
Publications
Fowler H
(2010)
Detecting changes in seasonal precipitation extremes using regional climate model projections: Implications for managing fluvial flood risk
in Water Resources Research
Burton A
(2010)
A stochastic model for the spatial-temporal simulation of nonhomogeneous rainfall occurrence and amounts
in Water Resources Research
Birkinshaw S
(2010)
Using satellite altimetry data to augment flow estimation techniques on the Mekong River
in Hydrological Processes
Archer D
(2010)
Sustainability of water resources management in the Indus Basin under changing climatic and socio economic conditions
in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
Burton A
(2010)
Downscaling transient climate change using a Neyman-Scott Rectangular Pulses stochastic rainfall model
in Journal of Hydrology
Wilby, R.L. And Fowler, H.J.
(2010)
Modelling the Impact of Climate Change on Water Resources
Bovolo C
(2011)
The Ebro River Basin
Van Vliet M
(2011)
A multi-model ensemble of downscaled spatial climate change scenarios for the Dommel catchment, Western Europe
in Climatic Change
Description | The original grant was about understanding extreme rainfall patterns in the UK better and how these are linked to flooding and might change under global warming. I have used the funding to develop a number of different areas and to achieve the original aims |
Exploitation Route | My findings have been taken forward and used in the development of PPS25 and the latest guidance and has been further developed in other grants like CONVEX, SINATRA and INTENSE (ERC funded) |
Sectors | Environment |
Description | Used in EA guidance on uplift factors for extreme rainfall under climate change. Used in parliamentary debate. |
First Year Of Impact | 2006 |
Sector | Environment |
Impact Types | Policy & public services |
Description | ERC Consolidator's Award |
Amount | € 1,990,000 (EUR) |
Organisation | European Research Council (ERC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | Belgium |
Start | 05/2014 |
End | 05/2019 |
Description | FUTURE-DRAINAGE: Ensemble climate change rainfall estimates for sustainable drainage |
Amount | £250,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | NE/S017348/1 |
Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 02/2019 |
End | 01/2020 |
Description | NERC Environmental Risks to Infrastructure Programme |
Amount | £161,390 (GBP) |
Funding ID | NE/N012852/1 |
Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 02/2016 |
End | 09/2017 |
Description | ONE Planet NERC Doctoral Training Programme |
Amount | £6,000,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2019 |
End | 09/2024 |
Description | Royal Society GCRF |
Amount | £97,508 (GBP) |
Organisation | The Royal Society |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 12/2016 |
End | 12/2017 |
Description | GEWEX(GHP) meeting in France |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | GEWEX(GHP) annual panel meeting in Paris, France. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Ny Alesund symposium 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | The Ny-Ålesund Symposium is a high-level event that brings together 45 global leaders from politics, science and business. This year's symposium theme is "Navigating Climate Risk", and is hosted by the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ine Eriksen Søreide. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | http://www.ny-aalesundsymposium.no/2018/About_the_symposium_2018.shtml |
Description | Prof hayley fowler talk at GEWEX bi-annual conference, Canmore, Canada |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | GEWEX bi-annual conference, Canmore, Canada |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Public Lecture in Newcastle on 4th Dec 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Public Lecture in Newcastle on 4th Dec 2018 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Talk at Royal Society of Edinburgh meeting on flooding and climate change |
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 | Event at Royal Society of Edinburgh on climate change and flood risk - talks by various experts and debate in the evening. Attended by public and practitioners alike (over 100 attending) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Talk at workshop (KNMI, Netherlands) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Small workshop on convective rainfall extremes at KNMI, Netherlands. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | attended BIRS Workshop 16w5092 Uncertainty Modeling in the Analysis of Weather, Climate and Hydrological Extremes and gave invited talk |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | talk at scientific workshop in Canada (maths and stats in climate). about 40 attendees |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |