Joint Defra/EA Flood and coastal erosion risk management R&D Programme
Modelling and Risk Theme
Theme Manager - Suresh Surendran (Environment Agency)
Recent Theme Outputs
- September 2008: Risk assessment of coastal erosion
- August 2008: ERP2 - Estuary management system - scoping and dissemination
- August 2008 - Broad Scale Modelling - a Scoping Study on catchment scale modelling for MAR vision
Further information is available for all ongoing and published research within this theme.
Background
The Modelling and Risk Theme (MAR) will support Defra and the Environment Agency in their aims of managing and reducing risk effectively efficiently. The Theme will develop tools and models to improve our understanding of the sources, pathways and receptors of flood and coastal erosion risk. This will include the physical processes, environmental extremes, system responses, vulnerabilities, and uncertainties. The science will be practical and based on the best available data, and information, and give the most appropriate mathematical and numerical representations of the problem or solution.
The Theme will develop and promote a 'risk based' framework and will have clear view of who the appropriate business sponsors and beneficiaries are; for all projects and programmes, the benefits will be identified and there will be a clear plan to ensure that the benefits are realised.
To achieve this vision the MAR Theme is divided into 3 sub-themes, representing the outstanding issues and challenges:
- Cross cutting risk based knowledge and methods to produce information and knowledge to develop tools, techniques, frameworks and models and to support decision making and delivery of all aspects of flood and coastal erosion risk management.
Example topics to be researched in the sub-theme are: data, information, knowledge and software; climate change and extremes; risk, reliability and uncertainty methods; methods for sustainability
- Spatially-based processes and models, to improve our understanding and model the physical, social and economic processes of flooding and coastal erosion to help us to manage the risk in a more sustainable way.
Example topics in the sub-theme are: catchment urban flood risk; coastal and estuary processes; resilience and other non-structural approaches.
- Integrated catchment and coastal models and applications, to manage flood and coastal erosion risk at national, regional / catchment and area / local levels.
Example topics are: tools for national risk assessment; catchment level strategic planning, scheme appraisal; asset management and flood incident management; tools for risk and hazard mapping.
In planning the programme the MAR theme will build on the work of the first five years of the Joint Programme. It will also continue to work in partnership with the research councils and the EU on such projects as the FRMRC, FREE and Floodsite where these provide clear and identified added value for users. MAR will work closely with other themes in the Joint Programme.Page last modified: 3 September 2008
Page published: 19 April 2004