Hydrological Extremes, Coasts and Risk Management

CREW's Hydrological Extremes, Coasts and Risk Management theme focusses on providing high quality science knowledge regarding:
 

• Nature based solutions
• Resilience and adaption to climate change
• Hydrological extremes: flooding and water scarcity

The projects undertaken within this theme support policy and regulation areas including:

• Scottish National Adaptation Plan (SNAP3) - Water scarcity
• Climate Change Plan for Scotland, UK Climate Change: risk assessment & adaptation
• Flood Risk Management Act
• Flood Resilience Strategy
• Scottish Biodiversity Strategy
• National coastal change assessments inc. erosion management

Recent research published within this thematic area includes:

• Climate Crisis: informing Scotland’s actionable mitigation and adaptation response to water scarcity - the research team reviewed past, present and future changes in water scarcity risk in Scotland, highlighting the current challenges in addressing the water scarcity risk and provide recommendations on how to address them.
• Methodologies for sampling fish populations in Scottish freshwater lochs - the project assessed the currently available methodologies for sampling fish populations in Scottish freshwater lochs. Acknowledging the complexity and longstanding challenges with fish monitoring in standing freshwaters, the project team produced guidelines which support the development of suitable fish assessment programmes.
• Increasing flood resilience: residential and community runoff retention solutions – the project team carried out a literature review, case studies and a cost-benefit analysis to evaluate and compare the cost and effectiveness of residential and community property rainwater runoff source control solutions to increase flood resilience.

Key legacy projects published within this thematic area include:

• 2022 - Effective future communication of flood risk in Scotland - this project explored how to improve flood risk communication in Scotland, highlighting the need for audience-specific approaches. It emphasised clear messaging, community involvement, and actionable guidance to enhance resilience and avoid maladaptive responses.
• 2020 - Impacts of Flooding in North-east Scotland - in response to severe flooding in the winter of 2015/16, CREW commissioned research in Ballater and Garioch to understand long-term flood impacts and improve recovery support. The project team informed strategies for enhancing flood-risk management and strengthening community resilience.
• 2019 - Quantifying rates of urban creep in Scotland - this project mapped urban creep in Edinburgh from 1990 to 2015, revealing an annual loss of 6.44ha of vegetated land. Findings provide Scotland’s first city-wide estimates, highlighting impacts on surface water flood risk.