Extreme event recognition phase 2: improving flood forecasting
A study exploring extreme events to improve flood warning lead times to reduce flood impacts.
Documents
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Details
This project was the second phase of a project investigating ways of improving Extreme Event Recognition. Phase 1 of this project identified some key criteria involved in causing extreme rainfall and the potential for severe flooding. This second phase focuses on getting a better understanding of extreme events and their characteristics to enable a better forecasting service. It investigates the key flood defence objective of improving flood warning lead times to reduce flood impacts.
This study has provided an opportunity to explore research areas that could produce improved flood warning lead times by identifying viable hypotheses and current gaps in research. Not all the approaches looked at in this work resulted in a significant advance in the forecasting of extreme events. However, the findings have highlighted those areas where further research is most likely to succeed.
Further work is required to develop the findings into mainstream forecasting systems. This is to improve our ability to predict extreme rainfall and give advance warning of potential severe flood events.
This project ran from 2004 to 2006 at a cost of £257,293.