Coastal Flooding by Extreme Events (CoFEE)

Coastal Flooding by Extreme Events (CoFEE) Over the next 100 years sea level will rise and there may be more severe storms. This will increase the coastal flooding risk to property, businesses, industry, roads and rail networks at great cost to us all. We must now face the consequences of climate change and either invest in sustainable defences or develop new ways to live with more flooding. The first option will cost a great deal of money and the second option may mean we need to change radically the way we currently occupy and use the coastal environment. The Coastal Flooding by Extreme Events (CoFEE) project will use our present knowledge of the eastern Irish Sea coastline in computer models to investigate the speed and extent of coastal flooding during storms and to determine how sensitive our coasts are to extreme events. CoFEE will attempt to answer 4 questions: (a) how big will coastal floods be in the future; (b) which types of coast can we leave to flood and which must we defend; (c) what might the coast look like in the future; (d) what are the risks of allowing coastal flooding to occur? CoFEE will look at different natural coastlines that include, estuaries, beaches and sand dunes and coastlines that are defended by a range of man-made structures. The results will be applicable to coastal areas elsewhere in Britain and more widely. By bringing together scientists, engineers and the people who plan flood defences, CoFEE will provide the basis for predicting the threat of coastal floods in a changing climate so that resources can be better targeted to deliver more effective, better informed and sustainable strategies for managing the flood risk to our coastlines in the future.