5.1 Developing a coastal simulator

Task description

The overall aim of this task is to develop tools to identify how the future coastline may evolve for a range of plausible climate and management scenarios, and hence support strategic coastal and shoreline planning. Building on the foundation established during Phase 1, it develops a coastal simulator, which takes downscaled climate scenarios and explores their impacts on a discrete coastal sub-cell , including different development pathways and management options.

The planned coastal simulator is shown in Figure 1. A range of climate, process and socio-economic models are integrated across a range of discrete scales from global scenarios down to the scale of the simulator (in this case a sub-cell). The main outputs are both physical changes to the coast such as changes to ecosystems, and shoreline retreat due to erosion, and human consequences of these changes such as flood and erosion risk. These impacts are coupled, so the effects of different approaches to coastal management can be evaluated.

The coastal simulator holds all above described models and allows the user to question and analyse the impacts of climate pressures under various coastal management policies on all components, which helps drawing guidelines for shoreline management plans. The simulator will be available to the user at two levels: static and semi-dynamic. The static version includes a library of existing runs based on preset conditions and scenarios, while the semi-dynamic form will allow the interpolation between these runs, and investigation of more complex questions related to changes in the preset conditions and scenarios.

To date, the major progress has been in terms of the overall simulator design, development of urban land use models for scenarios of the future built environment, and a trial interface for 51 simulations conducted in Phase 1 of the Tyndall Centre. To test the utility of both the overall design and the simulator interface, they will be demonstrated to the Environment Agency at workshop at Tyndall HQ in October – revisions to the framework may follow. The urban land use model is based on an agent-based approach and a prototype model already exists, following a workshop at Tyndall HQ in the summer. This model approach to scenario creation represents a significant change in methodology compared to the expert judgement approach used in Phase 1, and is attractive in terms of coupling within the simulator.

While the main focus is on sub-cell 3b in eastern England, the method is designed to be generic and we will eventually explore potential application to other open coast coastal sub-cells. Application of the simulator approach to other coastal systems such as deltas, estuaries and small islands is also a long-term objective.

People and task details

Principal Investigator: Prof. Robert Nicholls, University of Southampton

Lead researchers: Prof. Andrew Watkinson, University of East Anglia
Prof. Peter Stansby, Manchester University
Dr. Mike Walkden, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Dr. Jason Lowe, Hadley Centre for Climate Change Research

Other researchers involved:
Dr. Mustafa Mokrech, University of Southampton
Dr. Julie Richards, University of Southampton
Dr. Simon Jude, University of East Anglia
Dr. George Jacoub, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Dr. Judith Wolf, Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory
Prof. Mark Rounsevell, UCL, Belgium
Dr. Peter Balson, British Geological Survey

Task duration:
1 April 2006 to 31 March 2009

Stakeholders:
Mainly the Environment Agency, but all stakeholders in shoreline management planning (e.g., maritime local authorities, English Nature (Natural England))

Planned outputs and communication:
The coastal simulator will contain a library of runs developed with the system of models (formal coupling of the models is not possible). Regular workshops will be held with the Environment Agency and its fellow stakeholders to test the utility of these methods to support shoreline management.

We are developing a publication plan. The ICE Coastal Management Conference in Cardiff (2007) and the annual Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Conference are also being targeted, and further journal outputs are proposed.

http://vrlab.env.uea.ac.uk/wiki/index.php/Main/Workshop280607