Heavy rain

Tag: Extreme weather

Community resilience to extreme weather

Cranfield University

February 2008 – November 2011

Flooding is recognised as a critical business threat, though seldom sufficiently prioritised for developing a coping strategy. It was perceived as an unavoidable risk that required community level engagement (structural protection, better drainage system, proper drainage maintenance). Nearly half of SMEs examined had neither considered the risks nor implemented coping strategies, those that had usually extended generic business risk strategies to deal with immediate impacts of EWEs. Supply chain impact potential was often unrecognised. As part of this project, the ‘What-If’ Scenario Portal (WISP) was developed as a series of interlinked toolkits used for mapping the projections of future weather-related hazards developed.

Research Council: EPSRC

Completed | Before | Tagged: , ,

Community resilience to extreme weather events through improved local decision-making

University of Greenwich

March 2008 – November 2011

SMEs must be prepared for the disruption that an extreme weather event (EWE) can bring and have contingency plans in place to help their immediate recovery to secure their long term survival. This project aimed to understand how each group of decision-makers is affected by and responds to EWEs, and to identify the synergies and conflicts between their decisions that affect community resilience. The aim of the research is to develop an integrated decision-making framework that supports the individual and collective actions of local policymakers, households and SMEs, in such a way that the actions result in the improved resilience of local communities to EWEs.

Research Council: EPSRC

Completed | Before | Tagged: , ,

Evaluating the resilience of critical infrastructure for emergency response to extreme flood events in Leicester City

Loughborough University

2015

Whilst in the possession of a wealth of data and abundant local knowledge, emergency responders often find it challenging to apply existing flood ‘hotspot’ data to assist strategic planning and operational response. An interdisciplinary team of researchers with project partners from the City of Leicester, UK, evaluated the resilience of emergency response during extreme flood events, including the accessibility of the city to emergency responders during extreme flooding. The results uncovered aspects of flooding that stakeholders were unaware of, i.e. the ‘hotspot’ areas which would directly become inundated, and the indirect, cascading impacts of flood events of different magnitudes on emergency response times at a cityscale.

Research Council: NERC

Completed | During | Tagged: ,

Extreme weather events should apply a ‘whole systems’ approach

University of Surrey

2016

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, flooding and hurricanes. An effective response requires joined-up activities across sectors managing food, water and energy security. ‘Bottom-up’ participation from local communities is needed to design sustainable and resilient responses to nexus shocks.

Research Council: ESRC

Completed | Before | Tagged:

Increasing Civil Society’s capacity to deal with changing extreme weather risk: negotiating dichotomies in theory and practice

University of the West of England

January 2017 – December 2019

UK government approaches to the management of increasing extreme weather risk have shifted since the mid-1990s from a top-down centrally imposed model to devolved responsibility where Civil Society (CS) is a key player. This seminar series aims to critically examine the changing role of CS in Extreme Weather Adaptation (preparation, recovery, prevention, mitigation, evaluation). Businesses, particularly SMEs, will have the opportunity to reflect on how they can embed within community networks and have a mutually supportive role in community resilience planning within the EWAC.

Research Council: ESRC

Active | After | Tagged: , ,

Public perceptions of climate change in the immediate aftermath of major national flooding

Cardiff University

June 2014 – June 2015

The relationship between extreme weather and public attitudes is complex and still little understood. Reading across the evidence from both the national sample and those directly affected, our findings indicate that a significant association between the winter flooding of 2013/14 and climate change did indeed form in the British public mind both during and immediately after these events. 

Research Council: ESRC

Completed | After | Tagged: ,

Resource implications of adaptation of infrastructure to global change

Newcastle University

February 2010 – January 2015

Effective flood incident management (FIM) requires successful operation of complex, interacting human and technological systems. A dynamic agent-based model of FIM processes has been developed to provide new insights which can be used for policy analysis and other practical applications. The model integrates remotely sensed information on topography, buildings and road networks with empirical survey data to fit characteristics of specific communities. The multi-agent simulation has been coupled with a hydrodynamic model to estimate the vulnerability of individuals to flooding under different storm surge conditions, defence breach scenarios, flood warning times and evacuation strategies. A case study in the coastal town of Towyn in the United Kingdom has demonstrated the capacity of the model to analyse the risks of flooding to people, support flood emergency planning and appraise the benefits of flood incident management measures.

Research Council: EPSRC

Completed | Before | Tagged: , ,

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