1. P H D C A N D I D A T E
OANA IACOB
Natural flood management as a
climate change adaptation option
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
Dundee
2. Outline
Introduction to ecosystem services
Climate change threat
What is natural flood management?
Tarland study catchment
Hydrological modelling
Land use scenarios
Climate change scenarios
Hydrological modelling tool
Conclusions
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
3. Introduction to ecosystem services
Humans have always depended on nature for
environmental assets like clean water, nutrient
cycling and soil formation.
These have been called by different names through
human history, but are presently gaining global
attention as ‘ecosystem services’.
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
4. Ecosystem services
Humans have changed ecosystems to meet rapidly
growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fibre
and fuel.
This has resulted in a substantial and largely
irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
5. UK NEA (2011): Relative
importance of, and
trends in the
impact of direct drivers
on UK ecosystem
services
6. Sea levels are rising
Glaciers are retreating
Rainfall patterns are
changing
Increased frequency of
extreme events
Climate change ~ 1 in 22 of all residential
properties & 1 in 13 of all
non-residential properties
at risk of flooding
The average annual damages ~
£720 million to £850 million
7. Engineered schemes or natural flood management?
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
8. What is Natural Flood Management?
NFM involves the restoration or utilisation of ‘natural’ land cover and channel-floodplain
features within catchments through
storing water
increasing soil infiltration
slowing water
reducing water flow connectivity
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
9. Location within the
catchment for NFM
techniques
WWF Scotland, 2011
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
fisheries
carbon
sequestration
oxygen
production
biodiversity
recreation
water
quality
flood
protection
water
supply
climate
regulation
10. Representation of expected Engineered (Eng) and NFM strategies behaviour in
no climate change conditions and with climate change (Iacob et al., 2013)
c)
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
11. Dee catchment, Tarland subbasin
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
• Centrally situated tributary of the River Dee in north east of Scotland
• Approximately 77 km2
• The upper and lower Tarland includes the village of Tarland (600
people) and Aboyne ( 2200 people)
12. Tarland
subbasin
Issues identified:
1. Flooding
2. Low flows
3. Loss of habitats
4. Poor water quality
5. Loss of biodiversity
Soil map Tarland Land use map Tarland
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
DEM and river network Tarland
13. Modelling land use and climate scenarios
Land use
scenarios
Climate
change
scenarios
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
Land use scenarios are
being developed to
explore spatial issues and
scale issues but also
assessing the impacts of
different policy driven
land use scenarios and
identify their impacts on
NFM options
performance
WaSiM-ETH
Hydrological
response
15. Climate change scenarios
Climate Change Projections are available for Scotland at a 25 km
grid size and 12 km grid size
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
16. WaSiM-ETH
model
Fully distributed,
physically based model
for estimating climate
change impacts
The model has a good
flexibility in separating
surface runoff from
interflow allowing a
good reproduction of
flood events.
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
Schulla , 2012
17. Conclusions
Climate change poses new challenges that need new
approaches for flood risk management
Natural flood management has the potential to
deliver ‘low regret’ solutions
Time lags must be considered in
flood vulnerable communities
11 April, Facing the Future Symposium 2013
