The 2010-12 drought and subsequent extensive flooding: a remarkable hydrological transformation

Marsh, Terry; Parry, Simon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7057-4195; Kendon, Mike; Hannaford, Jamie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5256-3310. 2013 The 2010-12 drought and subsequent extensive flooding: a remarkable hydrological transformation. Wallingford, NERC/Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, 54pp.

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Abstract/Summary

Across most of the UK, the 2010‑12 period was remarkable in climatic terms with exceptional departures from normal rainfall, runoff and aquifer recharge patterns. Generalising broadly, drought conditions developed through 2010, intensified during 2011 and were severe across much of England & Wales by the early spring of 2012. Record late spring and summer rainfall then triggered a hydrological transformation that has no close modern parallel. Seasonally extreme river flows were common through the summer, heralding further extensive flooding during the autumn and, particularly, the early winter when record runoff at the national scale provided a culmination to the wettest nine‑month sequence for England & Wales in an instrumental record beginning in 1766. This report provides comprehensive documentation and hydrometeorological appraisals of a three‑year period which incorporated a number of important regional drought episodes as well as the outstanding runoff and recharge patterns which characterised most of 2012. An examination of the wide range of impacts of the drought and flood episodes is included and the extreme hydrometeorological conditions are examined within an extended historical context. Finally, the recent exceptional conditions are reviewed in the light of observational evidence for trends in temperature, rainfall, river flow and aquifer recharge patterns.

Item Type:	Publication - Report
Programmes:	CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Water > WA Topic 1 - Variability and Change in Water Systems > WA - 1.4 - Management and dissemination of freshwaters data CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Water > WA Topic 3 - Science for Water Management > WA - 3.2 - Assessment of available water resources in a changing world ...
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Boorman (to September 2014)
ISBN:	9781906698447
Funders/Sponsors:	NERC
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	Freely available online - Official URL link provides full text
NORA Subject Terms:	Hydrology Atmospheric Sciences
Related URLs:	Project Website
Date made live:	28 Oct 2013 16:10 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/503643

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