An improved database of coastal flooding in the United Kingdom from 1915 to 2016

Ivan D. Haigh*, Ozgun Ozsoy, Matthew P. Wadey, Robert J. Nicholls, Shari L. Gallop, Thomas Wahl, Jennifer M. Brown

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    38 Citations (Scopus)
    34 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Coastal flooding caused by extreme sea levels can produce devastating and wide-ranging consequences. The 'SurgeWatch' v1.0 database systematically documents and assesses the consequences of historical coastal flood events around the UK. The original database was inevitably biased due to the inconsistent spatial and temporal coverage of sea-level observations utilised. Therefore, we present an improved version integrating a variety of 'soft' data such as journal papers, newspapers, weather reports, and social media. SurgeWatch2.0 identifies 329 coastal flooding events from 1915 to 2016, a more than fivefold increase compared to the 59 events in v1.0. Moreover, each flood event is now ranked using a multi-level categorisation based on inundation, transport disruption, costs, and fatalities: from 1 (Nuisance) to 6 (Disaster). For the 53 most severe events ranked Category 3 and above, an accompanying event description based upon the Source-Pathway-Receptor-Consequence framework was produced. Thus, SurgeWatch v2.0 provides the most comprehensive and coherent historical record of UK coastal flooding. It is designed to be a resource for research, planning, management and education.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number170100
    Pages (from-to)1-10
    Number of pages10
    JournalScientific Data
    Volume4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2017

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright the Author(s) 2017. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'An improved database of coastal flooding in the United Kingdom from 1915 to 2016'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this