Delft-FEWS

1. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
FEWS Glasgow: development of a pilot surface water forecasting system (& operational use during Commonwealth Games)
Amy Tavendale
October 2014

2. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Acknowledgements:
Pilot Surface Water Flood Forecasting Project
& FEWS Glasgow colleagues:
•
Linda Speight (SEPA)
•
Juzer Dhondia (Deltares)
•
Marcel Ververs/Marc van Dijk (Deltares)
•
Bob Moore/Steven Cole (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology)
•
Michael Cranston (SEPA)
•
Met Office & James Hutton Institute colleagues

3. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Flood Forecasting in Scotland

4. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
FEWS Scotland: a national system
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National coverage
•
One system used by national forecasting hydrologists and local flood warning duty officers
•
River stage, rainfall, temperature, reservoir levels observations
•
Surge, wind, wave, temperature and precipitation forecasts
•
Catchment & national forecasts (ensemble)
•
‘Permissions’ used at login restrict access and synchronisation
•
Runs on virtual server environment
•
Migrated to a dual MC system in April 2013
•
Continuing expansion…
2014

5. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
•SEPA Flood Warning Strategy 2012-2016
•
Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009
•New flood warning schemes:
Loch Linnhe, Stonehaven,
Firths of Forth & Tay, Moray Firth

6. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Developing surface water forecasting capabilities

7. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Pilot surface water forecasting tool
•
Tool to enhance SEPA’s surface water flood forecasting
•
Aimed at responders rather than general public
•
Collaboration with partners
– re existing models and mapping
– re useful alerting mechanisms

8. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Recent summer flooding in Glasgow
July 2002,
June 2007,
August 2011,
July 2012,
July 2013

9. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Glasgow 2014
© Crown copyright
•
Operational use of tool during Commonwealth Games (July 2014)
•Strategic Flood Risk Assessment for Games identified flooding as a risk
•Well established network of responders
•High profile event to demonstrate science

10. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Modelling approach & technical implementation

11. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Methodology

12. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
FEWS Glasgow:
•Delft-FEWS environment
•Single Master Controller instance
•Independent* to FEWS Scotland (*very nearly)
•Servers run on virtual server environment in Perth
•No client-server interaction
•Hosts the G2G Glasgow model

13. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
FEWS Scotland and FEWS Glasgow:
•Independent systems and independent data feeds
however
•National G2G Scotland states transferred once a day from FEWS Scotland to FEWS Glasgow
•Updated with best available hydrometric data
•State export/import schedule co-ordinated

14. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
G2G Glasgow:
•
Uses G2G Scotland states transferred from FEWS Scotland
•
Runs on 22x22km MOGREPS domain
•
Cut-out of supporting datasets for quicker operation
•
Uses rain gauge observations from WISKI, but no flow/level information
•Runs ‘Glasgow’ cut-out ensembles
(2km grid)
•MOGREPS-UK
•STEPS Nowcast
•Provides G2G Surface Runoff
estimates on 10x10km grid

15. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Linking rainfall to impacts
Effective runoff
Forecast rainfall
Surface runoff
Associated impacts –
1) People and Property & 2) Transport

16. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
FEWS Glasgow:

17. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
FEWS Glasgow Output:
•Web reports export current forecasts
•Data accumulated on 6 hourly basis
•All web reports are archived & available for project review
•Last 16 web reports are accessible internally (8 forecasts a day)
•Removes any potential for client- server synchronisation issues
•Forecasters best assessment of overall risk in Glasgow

18. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Glasgow Surface Water Flood Forecast
Supplementary Guidance

19. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Commonwealth Games

20. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Launch weekend 19th – 20th July
HRA Probability of greater than 20mm in 3 hours

21. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
18/07/2014 16:30 GMT
18/07/2014 21:30 GMT
19/07/2014 03:30 GMT
Transport
People & Property

22. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
19/07/2014
09:32 GMT
19/07/2014
15:27 GMT
Transport
People & Property


23. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Final weekend 2nd – 3rd August
Probability of > 20mm in 3 hours

24. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014

25. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
(Some initial) FEWS lessons learned from FEWS Glasgow operation:
•Occasional issue with failures of ensemble run when using multiple cores (fix is forthcoming)
•Benefit of post-processing (i.e. accumulation to 6 hour timesteps) to deal with uncertainty associated with forecast
•Users accepted web reports as source of information
•Import of rainfall forecast data triggered the automatic running of the relevant model forecast workflow
•Benefit of independent systems achieved – will help inform future projects

26. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Next steps:
•Summarising main findings of project
•Scalability for future cities/Scotland
•Potential staffing requirements
•Exploring system design (e.g. No of FSS’s)
•Applying good features/lessons learned from FEWS Glasgow into FEWS Scotland
•Onto the next projects (reservoir/snowmelt & more coastal/fluvial/pluvial)!

27. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Finally:
•Very positive feedback from responders
•Successful operational application of science developments
•Good collaborations and partnership working
•Publications forthcoming (British Hydrological Society, SFFS blog & journal articles)
•Demonstration of FEWS Glasgow & FEWS Scotland output during User Days on request

28. Delft-FEWS User Days 2014
Amy Tavendale
Senior Hydrologist, Flood Forecasting & Warning
Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
amy. tavendale @ sepa. org. uk
+441738 627989