Sensitivity of Estuaries to Climate Hazards (SEARCH)

Lead Research Organisation: Bangor University
Department Name: Sch of Ocean Sciences

Abstract

Twenty million people living near UK estuaries are at risk from compound flooding hazards. Recent near-miss flooding in UK catchments and estuaries (Dec-2013, Jan-2017) could have been much worse with subtle changes in surge-precipitation timings, although still caused extensive damage costing £500M. Estuary communities are especially vulnerable to future changes in flood risk; via sea-level rise combined with increases in storm surge heights - and changing precipitation and temperature patterns that will have profound impacts on fluvial behaviour. The SEARCH project will address this important issue directly by developing a new method to evaluate climate flooding hazards in UK estuaries. For the first time this method will be fit-for-purpose for compound flooding events across different spatial and temporal scales, and for different catchment and estuary types. This method will accurately resolve all hydrological and marine processes and their joint-probabilities. It will evaluate how climate predictions from UKCP18 downscale to flooding impact; hence, providing unique and crucial inundation and likelihood data for the EA, NRW and SEPA to identify the most vulnerable communities to compound flooding and to manage their resources effectively during incidence response. Importantly, we will show how compound flooding occurs and how sensitive different systems are to the different drivers of climate change.

Global sea levels are expected to rise up to 1 m this century and for some regions like the UK, precipitation and temperature distributions are likely to change, with extreme events such as storms, heatwaves and droughts becoming more intense and seasonal with altered timings. Changes in the intensity of flood drivers are expected to affect the hazard and risk. However, we hypothesise that changes in their timings relative to one another will also be vital for flood risk. For example, the timings of fluvial events will likely change due to changes in precipitation and temperature affecting soil moisture and groundwater flow. As a proof of concept in the NERC project CHEST, the investigators established the sensitivity of estuaries to tide-surge-fluvial events acting in combination, isolating distinct zones within estuaries of increased risk depending on catchment size relative to the estuary, estuary shape and the timing of surge and fluvial events relative to each other. Changes in flood risk due to climate change will therefore be site specific, with the relative roles of hazard drivers varying spatially. Long-term changes in extreme events are often unforeseeable because our understanding of the integrated system is incomplete. Considering the high socio-economic and environmental value of estuaries, the complexity of compound hazards, the projected changes in drivers, and unregulated landuse management, it is timely to develop new strategies for mitigating against compound flooding and to develop improved risk assessment tools for flood protection.

Working with the UK regulators of flooding, SEARCH will use past and new observations with UKCP18 projections of precipitation, temperature, fluvial flows, storm surge and sea level applied to a fast, tested and open-source hydrodynamic-groundwater model to simulate flooding hazards. We will simulate 14 systems that cover the range of locations and estuaries within the UK. Our results are urgently needed, as probabilistic methods of determining flood risk are obsolete because they do not capture the non-linear dynamics and do not include future changes. This two year project brings together world-leading researchers in catchment-to-coast environmental science (with PDRAs at Bangor and Hull Universities) to tackle this computationally challenging and under-investigated issue. This team have worked together successfully, with the involvement and support of key policy and industrial partners, establishing a new paradigm in flood risk and accumulating a vast amount of data.
 
Description Improved spatial analysis of potential compound flood events across Britain (Robins et al. 2021. Compound flooding: Dependence at sub-daily scales between extreme storm surge and fluvial flow. Frontiers; Lyddon et al. 2022. Historic spatial patterns of compound flood events in UK estuaries. Reviewed in Est & Coasts).
New historic baseflow separation across multiple UK rivers.
10 high-resolution estuary DEMs built and applied to flood inundation models (DOI of data to follow).
Exploitation Route This is the start of research that will establish drivers, thresholds and changes of flooding across Britain, that can be implemented into flood forecasting methods by the Met Office and flood protection Agencies.
Sectors Agriculture

Food and Drink

Education

Environment

Leisure Activities

including Sports

Recreation and Tourism

Government

Democracy and Justice

Transport

URL https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbuil.2021.727294/full
 
Description BlueAdapt
Amount £846,000 (GBP)
Funding ID 101057764 
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start  
 
Description BlueAdapt: Reducing climate based health risks in blue environments: Adapting to the climate change impacts on coastal pathogens.
Amount € 1,098,778 (EUR)
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 03/2022 
End 04/2026
 
Description Cemlyn Jones PhD: Coastal flooding: using historical records to mitigate future risk
Amount £60,000 (GBP)
Organisation Bangor University 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2020 
End 09/2024
 
Description Mapping social inequality in flooding: Will future flooding predominantly happen in recreation areas and rich neighbourhoods?
Amount £9,798 (GBP)
Organisation Bangor University 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2022 
End 10/2022
 
Description National COVID-19 Wastewater Epidemiology Surveillance Programme
Amount £791,191 (GBP)
Funding ID NE/V010441/1 
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2020 
End 11/2021
 
Description Offshore sediment resource and dynamics within Liverpool Bay and their importance to coastal infrastructure and natural barriers
Amount £60,000 (GBP)
Organisation Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarships (KESS) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2020 
End 10/2023
 
Description Pathogen Surveillance in Agriculture, Food and Environment Programme: Norovirus and AMR in coastal waters
Amount £372,000 (GBP)
Organisation Food Standards Agency (FSA) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2022 
End 04/2024
 
Description Pathways to Realistic Impact Modelling in Estuarine Areas (PRIMEA)
Amount £70,000 (GBP)
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2020 
End 09/2023
 
Description Predicting future compound hazards of coastal flooding.
Amount £70,000 (GBP)
Organisation Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarships (KESS) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2020 
End 04/2023
 
Description SWOT-UK: The UK contribution to validating SWOT in the Bristol Channel and River Severn, with application to coastal and river management.
Amount £287,555 (GBP)
Funding ID NE/V009168/1 
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2021 
End 01/2025
 
Description The impact of the physical environment on the foraging energetics of shearwaters and the consequences for breeding success
Amount £633,568 (GBP)
Funding ID NE/W001217/1 
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2022 
End 11/2025
 
Description The influence of groundwater and soil conditions on future flood risk of UK estuaries
Amount £75,000 (GBP)
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2022 
End 10/2026
 
Description There and back again: monitoring the returning fish to the Mersey estuary
Amount £60,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Salford 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2021 
End 10/2024
 
Description Understanding responses of coastal seabirds to local and daily-scale meteorological variation
Amount £60,000 (GBP)
Funding ID 2594632 
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2021 
End 03/2025
 
Description Viral dark matter: The emergence and distribution of human and animal viruses in Nigerian waters
Amount £33,718 (GBP)
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2020 
End 10/2020
 
Title Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data for the Conwy estuary, Wales 
Description The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) domain includes the tidally influenced Conwy estuary, downstream of the Cwmlanerch river gauge on the River Conwy and extending offshore into Conwy Bay and the Menai Strait at the coastal boundary. A number of sources were combined to generate the land elevation data, including (a) seabed bathymetry, (b) land elevations and (c) location and heights of existing flood defences. The domain topography was based on the marine DEM, Lidar Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and Ordnance Survey Terrain 5m DTM. The Lidar DTM data was used to check and, where necessary, augment the flood defences vector database. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2024 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/7217e6c0-46c7-4f87-bc36-589f884d3b02
 
Title Extreme river discharge and associated tide gauge co-occurrences from UK estuaries 1984-2013 
Description This dataset contains the dates and magnitudes of extreme river discharge and associated skew surge peaks for UK estuaries between 1984 and 2013. The lag time between the drivers is also provided. Thirty years of river discharge and sea level data for 126 estuaries around the UK were analysed. The river discharge and tide gauge data were used at a 15-minute temporal resolution. A peaks over threshold analysis was completed to identify peaks in the river discharge record which exceeded the 95th percentile. The largest skew surge associated with each extreme discharge event was identified, and saved if this value also exceeded the 95th percentile. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/d895fadb-d762-441a-9f3f-1ebe1cbabfa7
 
Description Collaborations with flood agencies 
Organisation Environment Agency
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Data and knowledge on compound flooding
Collaborator Contribution Data and knowledge on compound flooding
Impact Three papers published plus three in-prep detailing compound flooding research. Impact acceleration proposal on compound flooding in review.
Start Year 2020
 
Description Collaborations with flood agencies 
Organisation Natural Resources Wales
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Data and knowledge on compound flooding
Collaborator Contribution Data and knowledge on compound flooding
Impact Three papers published plus three in-prep detailing compound flooding research. Impact acceleration proposal on compound flooding in review.
Start Year 2020
 
Description Collaborations with flood agencies 
Organisation Scottish Environment Protection Agency
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Data and knowledge on compound flooding
Collaborator Contribution Data and knowledge on compound flooding
Impact Three papers published plus three in-prep detailing compound flooding research. Impact acceleration proposal on compound flooding in review.
Start Year 2020
 
Description Collaborations with the UK Met Office 
Organisation Meteorological Office UK
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Feedback on sea level climate data for impact research
Collaborator Contribution Provide sea level climate data
Impact Papers on future compound hazards in-prep
Start Year 2020
 
Description SEARCH partner 
Organisation Natural Resources Wales
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Sharing of data, sharing of information and knowledge
Collaborator Contribution Sharing of data, sharing of information and knowledge
Impact Still early to list
Start Year 2020