Cole, Steven

Cranston, Michael

Maxey, Richard

Moore, Robert

Robson, Alice

Speight, Linda

Tavendale, Amy

English

NERC Open Research Archive

Geophysical Research AbstractsVol. 15, EGU2013-12468, 2013EGU General Assembly 2013© Author(s) 2013. CC Attribution 3.0 License.The policy and science supporting flash flood forecasting in ScotlandMichael Cranston (1), Richard Maxey (1), Linda Speight (1), Amy Tavendale (1), Steven Cole (2), Alice Robson(2), and Robert Moore (2)(1) Flood Forecasting and Warning Section, SEPA, Scotland, United Kingdom (michael.cranston@sepa.org.uk), (2)Hydrological Modelling and Forecasting Group, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UnitedKingdomIn 2012, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) published its Flood Warning Strategy. The strategyaims to ensure that emerging science is at the heart of supporting its strategic aim of reducing the impact ofriver flooding through the provision of reliable and timely flood warnings and allowing Scotland’s flood warningauthority to develop forecasting approaches in areas not previously considered. One specific area of agreedcommitment is in the development of methods for forecasting in rapid response or flashy catchments.Previous policies have stated that flood warning provision would not be possible without adequate hydro-logical response time (greater than three hours). The particular challenge with meeting this new aim is onthe reliance of increasingly uncertain flooding predictions at the shorter timescale against a more cautiousand traditional approach to flood warning which relies on hydrological observations and real time verificationof forecasts. This therefore places increasing demands on developing hydrometeorological forecasting capabilities.This paper will present on some scientific developments supporting the latest policy. In particular on Grid-2-Grid, a distributed hydrological model, which has been in operation across Scotland for over a year (Cranston,et al., 2012) and on a specific assessment of its capabilities using high resolution and ensemble rainfall forecasts.The paper will focus on Comrie, a community in Scotland that has been devastated twice during 2012 by flashflooding and considers the various challenges in meeting this strategic aim.ReferencesCranston, M., Maxey, R., Tavendale, A., Buchanan, P., Motion, A., Moore, R. M., Cole, S., Robson, A.and Minett, A. (2012) Countrywide flood forecasting in Scotland: challenges for hydrometeorological uncertaintyand prediction. Weather Radar and Hydrology (Proceedings of a symposium held in Exeter, UK, April 2011),IAHS Publ. 351, 2012)

The policy and science supporting flash flood forecasting in Scotland

http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/501352/8/N501352AB.pdf

The policy and science supporting flash flood forecasting in Scotland

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