DSD-INT 2014 - Delft-FEWS Users Meeting - Glasgow surface water forecasting system for the Commonwealth Games, Amy Tavendale, Scottish Environment Protection Agency

Delft-FEWS User Days 2014

FEWS Glasgow: development of a pilot surface water forecasting system (& operational use during Commonwealth Games)

Amy Tavendale October 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

http://www.hutton.ac.uk/index.php


Flood Forecasting in Scotland


FEWS Scotland: a national system

• 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


• 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


Developing surface water forecasting capabilities


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

http://www.hutton.ac.uk/index.php

http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/


Recent summer flooding in Glasgow

July 2002, June 2007, August 2011, July 2012, July 2013


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


Modelling approach & technical implementation


Methodology


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


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


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


Linking rainfall to impacts

Effective runoff

Forecast rainfall

Surface runoff

Associated impacts – 1) People and Property & 2) Transport


FEWS Glasgow:


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


Glasgow Surface Water Flood Forecast

Supplementary Guidance


Commonwealth Games


Launch weekend 19th – 20th July

HRA Probability of greater than 20mm in 3 hours


18/07/2014 16:30 GMT

18/07/2014 21:30 GMT

19/07/2014 03:30 GMT

Transport People & Property


19/07/2014 09:32 GMT

19/07/2014 15:27 GMT

Transport People & Property


Final weekend 2nd – 3rd August Probability of > 20mm in 3 hours



(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


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)!


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


Amy Tavendale Senior Hydrologist, Flood Forecasting & Warning Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) amy. tavendale @ sepa. org. uk +441738 627989

DSD-INT 2014 - Delft-FEWS Users Meeting - Glasgow surface water forecasting system for the Commonwealth Games, Amy Tavendale, Scottish Environment Protection Agency

Science

fews scotland

scotland delftfews user

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fews glasgow output

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g2g surface runoff estimates