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MSc Team Project 2010/11
Recent flooding events in the UK
Project Description
The advertised paragraph for this project was:
This project will look at the way in which the UK attempts to cope with high-impact weather events: flooding, in particular. It may consider forecasting methods and the predictability of extreme events; the communication of warnings and information to local authorities and to the public; and, the real-time procedures in place for responding to developing situations. Issues such as these will be compared and contrasted for recent high-impact flood events. Good examples would be the Boscastle flood of 16th August 2004, the July 2007 floods, and the recent (November 2009) flooding in Cumbria.
Suggested Organization
There are four students working on the project. Flooding is a big subject and you are never going to cover it all in one week. I would suggest that you focus on the fluivial rather than the pluvial (so first find out what those words mean if you don't know already!). It is suggested that one student concentrates on the forecasting of extreme rainfall. The second could usefully focus on either (i) societal demands and responses or (ii) the outcomes of some recent large field campaigns and research projects on flooding. The third and fourth students should concentrate on some recent UK flooding events. The third should focus on a detailed look at one particular event: probably the Boscastle flood of 16th August 2004 is the best documented case in recent times, though other cases would be no doubt possible too. The fourth student should take a briefer look at a number of other events, comparing and contrasting a range of cases. Suggested resources for each area are provided below. There are some overlaps between these. Don't hide from the overlaps: instead, search them out, because you will need to find them and discuss in order to produce a proper joined-up team project. Frequent discussion will be important, and carefully-chosen resources should be passed between students.
Suggested Resources
Important note: The following links and pointers to resources are intended as starting points only. You should chase any links and citations that seem interesting from these sites and articles (and then follow the links from the links and so on...) You should also make your own library and internet searches. I assume you are familiar with some of the archived weather data available on the web (if not then start with the links on the Weather and Climate Discussion pages, or just google for wetterzentrale and go from there) and you should use them to try to find out as much as you can about the meteorological conditions leading to recent flooding events.
Government Bodies and Public Responses to Extreme Weather
The Environment Agency website has a great deal of information about floods and a number of useful links. A good place to start on their site is here. A good recent report from them about flooding can be found from here. They also have a number of publications and reports than can be obtainedfrom here.
The Pitt review was an influential report on the summer 2007 floods and lessons to be learnt from them. This was the official government response to it. One question you might consider is whether you think the lessons have now been learnt! This website from Defra should have a lot of good links to information about floods, including some details of the new flood and water management act 2010. Beware though that not every link I tried on there actually worked, which is why I've given a pointer to the Pitt review above.
The old DEFRA website on flooding can be found here and seemed like it might still have some useful stuff that hasn't been migrated to the new one. See also the 'Making space for water consultation document' Section 14: Flood warning systems and emergency responses - here.
In 2004 DEFRA ran an interesting simulation exercise to test our responses to flooding. Also, I've not tried this one myself, but here is a link to a flood-simulation game that apparently lets you play the role of the government and make decisions about how to respond to a sequence of flooding events!
You might also try the National Flood Forum.
Forecasting Extreme Weather and Research Into It
There is more to life than the internet: don't forget that there is also lots of useful information kept in paper form in the departmental and university libraries. Look for catalogue numbers starting 551.48 for books on hydrology for example, which includes a shelf-full of fairly accessible texts in the department library.
The Met Office and the Environment Agency now have a joint body called the Flood Forecasting Centre. Information about short-range forecasting can be found here.
Extreme weather forecasting at the European Severe Storms Laboratory and in the United States at the Storm Prediction Center.
The Tornado and Storm Research Organisation, TORRO.
FREE was a recent UK research programme into flooding. Also, a special issue of the journal Meteorological Applications was published in March 2009, devoted to recent flooding research. And, finally, a couple of articles that may be of interest: Collier CG. 2006. Flash flood forecasting: What are the limits of predictability? Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., 133, 3-23, and Hand et al 2004. A study of the twentieth-century extreme rainfall events in the United Kingdom with implications for forecasting. Meteorol. Appl., 11, 15-31.
In terms of the extreme rainfall, there are two recent large field campaigns to be aware of at the very least. One is called CSIP and the other is COPS. For CSIP see Browning et al, The Convective Storm Initiation Project, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2007. Just about to be published (!) is a special issue of the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Met Soc devoted to COPS.
Recent UK Flood Events
An introduction to the Boscastle flood of August 2004. A special issue of the Journal of Meteorology was published in November 2004 dedicated to the Boscastle flood. I will provide a copy of this (it's my copy so please return it at the end of the project!). In particular see the article by Robert Doe which gives an outline of the meteorology. You could also try Golding, B.W., Clark, P. and May, B. (2005) The Boscastle flood: Meteorological analysis of the conditions leading to flooding on 16 August 2004, Weather, 60, 230-235.
You might also look for information on the Carlisle flood of January 2005, the Yorkshire flood of June 2005, the floods of summer 2007, the Morpeth flood of September 2008 Other good ones are: the west Surrey thunderstorm of 13 August 2006 (Mayes and Winterton, February 2008, Weather) and the coastal thunderstorm in Kent on 21 August 2007 (Sibley, August 2009, Weather).
Robert Warren is a PhD student working with me on extreme rainfall events that resulted from convective storms triggering repeatedly over the same place. This is something we call anchored convection. He has been through the last two summers looking at events of this type, and the following dates look like good candidates:
21/07/2010, N. Cornwall + N. Devon (single coast-parallel band)
01/07/2009, Central Wales (single N-S oriented band)
01/07/2009, NE England (multiple quasi-anchored cells)
07/07/2009, Sussex and S. Kent coast (single coast-parallel band)
20/08/2010, N. England (multiple band features)
14/08/2010, Kent coast (single band feature on edge of coast)
07/09/2010, Exmoor and North of London (simultaneous anchored storms at these locations)
Type obvious phrases into Google for some of these events: eg, when I tried "Boscastle flood" I quickly stumbled on an extensive photo gallery of the event. You should be able to find plenty of old news reports this way. Try searching for BBC and the flood location and date as a starting point. For discussion "as it happened" try searching some of the forums at UK Weather World (you may need to register to be able to access some of the pages there).