Sandscaping for Mitigating Coastal Flood and Erosion Risk to Energy Infrastructure on Gravel Shorelines: a case study approach

拟议的研究旨在扩展英国其他沿海能源设施已经进行的工作，提供有关未来洪水风险和对现有沿海能源基础设施影响的重要细节，并开发决策支持工具（开源GIS），以指导运营和战略行动。这对于整个能源部门建立抵御极端事件（如沿海风暴、河流高流量）和长期气候变化（如海平面上升、波浪气候）的能力至关重要，同时又不依赖紧急措施或对消费者能源账单产生重大影响。该项目还有助于推进我们当前的能源战略（核能新建、海上可再生能源、能源基础设施投资、建筑能源安全），增强沿海低地和低洼河流洪泛区的抗洪能力，减少我们对海防硬工程解决方案的依赖。研究分为两个阶段。第一个是基于模拟海平面上升、风暴、海浪漫过和河水高流量等极端水位的洪水风险评估。该评估将作为一个开源地理信息系统的输入，为能源和沿海利益相关者提供一个决策支持系统（DSS），用于业务和战略规划。这直接建立在为西北地区和欣克利角、Sizewell、Bradwell和Sellafield的核设施开发的ARCoES项目（http://www.liv.ac.uk/geography-and-planning/research/adaptation-and-resilience-of-coastal-energy-supply/）的一部分方法的基础上。DSS旨在作为能源行业的决策支持工具，通过分阶段投资，有计划、及时地应对极端事件，并从战略上应对未来的气候变化。沿海利益相关者和社区还将DSS作为一种实用和易于使用的工具，用于确定关键转折点的时间和地点，在那里/何时需要在现有的海岸线管理计划中重新评估战略性沿海规划方案。第二阶段是“沙景观”的范围研究，该研究遵循荷兰正在开发的大规模、自我维持的海滩补给模型，从而为沿海地貌系统提供必要的沉积物库，以积极应对海平面上升并适应风暴事件。这种创新的方法需要基础研究和应用研究，以确定可行性，并确定从目标地点向下漂流或离岸可能产生的任何负面后果。在这里，该项目汇集了国家海洋学中心（NOC）最先进的水动力和沉积物模型的理解和应用，以及皇冠产业（TCE）和皇家哈斯科宁- dhv （RHDHV）在“软”海岸防御和战略海岸规划方面的商业、工程和环境专业知识，建立了一种方法，用于建立关于海岸水动力、沉积物来源和运输的沙景项目参数。沿海形态演变，更广泛的环境影响，以及项目许可。这两个阶段将被整合到一个以Dungeness为代表的砾石海岸线的案例研究中。Dungeness并不是ARCoES的研究地点之一，但在去年已成为国家电网和Magnox有限公司的优先区域。因此，拟议的合作解决了一组已经在英国各地合作的合作伙伴之间迫切的研究需求。

The proposed research aims to extend work that is already underway for other coastal energy installations around the UK, to provide essential detail on future flood risk and impacts on existing coastal energy infrastructure and develop a decision-support tool (open source GIS) for guiding operational and strategic actions. This is essential for building resilience across the energy sector to extreme events (e.g. coastal storms, high river flows) and longer-term climate change (e.g. sea-level rise, wave climate) in a way that does not rely on emergency measures or impact greatly on consumer energy bills. The project also contributes significantly to taking forward our current energy strategy (nuclear new build, offshore renewables, energy infrastructure investment, building energy security), to enhancing flood resilience in coastal lowlands and low-lying river floodplains, and to reducing our reliance on hard engineering solutions to coastal defence.Research is divided into two stages. The first is a flood risk assessment based on modeling extreme levels from sea-level rise, storms, wave overtopping and high river flows. This assessment will be the input to an open-source GIS to provide a range of energy and coastal stakeholders with a decision-support system (DSS) for operational and strategic planning. This builds directly on the methodology being developed as part of the ARCoES project (http://www.liv.ac.uk/geography-and-planning/research/adaptation-and-resilience-of-coastal-energy-supply/) for the NW region and nuclear sites at Hinkley Point, Sizewell, Bradwell and Sellafield. The DSS is designed as a decision-support tool for the energy industry in responding in a planned and timely way to extreme events and strategically to future climate change through staged investment. The DSS is also being used as a practical and accessible tool by coastal stakeholders and communities to identify the timing and location of key tipping points where/when strategic coastal planning options will need to be re-evaluated within existing shoreline management plans. The second stage is a scoping study for 'sandscaping' that follows the model being developed in the Netherlands for large-scale, self-sustaining beach recharge, thus providing the necessary sediment reservoir for coastal geomorphic systems to respond positively to sea-level rise and to be resilient to storm events. This innovative approach requires both fundamental and applied research to establish feasibility and to identify any negative consequences that might arise down-drift or offshore from the target site. Here, the project brings together state-of-the-art understanding and applications of hydrodynamic and sediment modeling from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) with business, engineering and environmental expertise in 'soft' coastal defence and strategic coastal planning at The Crown Estate (TCE) and Royal Haskoning-DHV (RHDHV) to establish a methodology for establishing the parameters for a sandscaping project with respect to coastal hydrodynamics, sediment source and transport, coastal morphological evolution, wider environmental impact, and project licensing. These two stages will be integrated in a case study focused on Dungeness as a representative gravel shoreline. Dungeness is not one of the study sites for ARCoES yet has emerged in the last year as a priority area for National Grid and Magnox Ltd. Consequently, the proposed collaboration addresses a pressing research need amongst a group of partners who are already working in partnership at sites across the UK.