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Project title

Joint probability of multi-driver floods along Ireland’s coastline

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

Met Eireann; Office of Public Works (OPW)

Lead Organisation

University of Galway

Lead Applicant

Agnieszka Indiana Olbert

Project Abstract

Floods are the most common and deadly weather-related natural disasters, and the evidence-based research shows that the climate change-driven increases in rainfall intensity, sea level and storm winds have been already amplifying the risk of flooding. Currently, over 300 local communities in Ireland are at risk of floods due to fluvial, pluvial and/or coastal mechanisms, and this number is likely to increase in the future in absence of further implementation of climate adaptation and mitigation measures. Moreover, there is evidence that current situation with floods around the globe and in Ireland already threatens a sustainable development. The JoinFloods project is motivated by an outlook of increasing vulnerability of Irish communities to floods, and by Ireland's statutory National Adaptation Framework which was developed to ensure an assessment of the key risks and vulnerabilities of climate change, and implementation of actions to build resilience to climate change. In response to recent Ireland’s Climate Change Assessment that highlighted an adaptation deficit in Ireland, JointFloods aims to provide a comprehensive knowledge, framework and tools that can help designing climate adaptation plans and addressing actions that need to be taken to account for shifting patterns and compound nature of climatic extremes. One of the challenges of the adaptation plan development is a lack of comprehensive understanding of the compound effects flood hazards on flood risks. In this context the overall aim of this study is to develop a set of tools and resources for a risk assessment associated with compound coastal-fluvial floods. In this project we will determine joint probability of river and coastal flood occurrences and map frequency and severity of compound events around the coast of Ireland under changing climate. The project implements the state-of-the-art statistical methods for the analysis of extreme values, dependencies, joint probability of co-occurrence and validation. The project uses extensive datasets from observations and models to investigate flood mechanisms, dynamics under univariate and multivariate forcing, and complex non-linear interactions between flood drivers. Furthermore, the project proposes also statistical downscaling of climate change global/regional projections for various scenarios to study future changes to flood risk distributions. The outputs of this project can be used to inform national-to-local level adaptation planning and facilitating informed decision-making for flood risk management. Also, in this project we will focus on long-term projections of impacts of climate change on spatio-temporal dynamics of flood risks. To the authors knowledge a detailed country-scale analysis of future flood risks in estuaries under shifting climate patterns have not been carried out for Ireland yet. Understanding flood risks will help the authorities to prioritize policies, select most time- and cost-pressured flood relief investments, develop new engineering models for multi-hazard risk models and support flood management decisions, and hence developing context-sensitive and community-specific adaptive design and management strategies for reinforcing the national to community-level resilience to floods driven by a combination of drivers. JointFloods will provide an opportunity to achieve transformative novel solutions to impacts of floods on society and economy, and to help a sustainable development of robust adaptation measures.

Grant Approved

€164,910.94

Research Hub

Addressing Climate Change Evidence Needs

Research Theme

n/a

Start Date

31/03/2026

Initial Projected Completion Date

30/09/2027