Spatially coherent statistical simulation of widespread flooding events under climate change

Griffin, Adam ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8645-4561; Kay, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5526-1756; Stewart, Elizabeth ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4246-6645; Sayers, Paul. 2022 Spatially coherent statistical simulation of widespread flooding events under climate change. Hydrology Research, 53 (11). 1428-1440. https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2022.069

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Abstract/Summary

Simulating rare widespread hydrological events can be difficult even with the use of modelled data such as the UKCP18 12 km regional climate projections. To generate larger event sets for application in catastrophe modelling, two statistical approaches are highlighted and applied to widespread GB-generated flooding events using a grid-based hydrological model and UKCP18 regional projections. An Empirical Copula method was applied on a national scale, generating over 600,000 events across two time-slices (1980–2010 and 2050–2080). This was compared to model-generated events and showed good matching across time-slices and ensemble members, although lacked some ability to describe the least-rare events. The Empirical Copula was also compared to an implementation of a conditional exceedance model. This model was much more computationally intensive so was restricted to Northwest England but offered the ability to be tuned more finely through choices of marginal distributions. Analysing over 11,000 events, it also matched well with the Empirical Copula and model-generated events but under-represented the smallest events. Both approaches require a broad dataset to draw from but showed reasonable efficacy. For simple statistics, the Empirical Copula shows the potential to be a powerful tool in exploring spatial structure over large regions or at a fine spatial resolution.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2022.069
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Hydro-climate Risks (Science Area 2017-) UKCEH Fellows
ISSN:	1998-9563
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	Open Access paper - full text available via Official URL link.
Additional Keywords:	climate change, flood hydrology, statistics
NORA Subject Terms:	Hydrology
Date made live:	20 Nov 2023 12:55 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/535891

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2022.069

UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:

Hydro-climate Risks (Science Area 2017-)
UKCEH Fellows

ISSN:

1998-9563

Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:

Open Access paper - full text available via Official URL link.

Additional Keywords:

climate change, flood hydrology, statistics