Smart forecasting: joined-up flood forecasting (FF) infrastructure with uncertainties

面对前所未有的气温上升和降水加剧，可靠和全面的洪水预报对于确保未来城市的抗灾能力和可持续的社会经济发展至关重要。来自城市周边地区的洪水会严重影响整个城市地区的洪水周期行为，给预测带来往往不可忽视的不确定性。然而，目前我们能够预测洪水灾害的程度是有限的，而且现有的方法不能处理区域间的依赖关系（例如，当洪水影响中欧和东欧的9个不同国家时所看到的）。目前在英国大约。每年有25%的洪水保险理赔来自预计有洪水风险的地区以外的地区，而每年的洪水损失成本已经很高（约为10亿美元）。£15亿)。此外，每年有超过2万所房屋继续在洪泛区建造。各方已经认识到将洪水预报转变为一系列应用和尺度的必要性。《2017年英国气候变化风险评估证据报告》将洪水列为英国城市现在和未来与气候变化相关的最大直接威胁，并敦促采取紧急行动，包括在未来5年内制定新的解决方案。水力软件行业和咨询公司已经表达了对更可靠、更复杂的洪水预报方法的渴望，这也可以减少所需的体力劳动。此外，数学和工程研究界仍在寻找连接、可靠和高效、通用和适应性强的预测模型。为了满足这一需求，本项目将采用“多小波”技术，将洪水预报程序从一组不同的活动转变为一个统一的自动框架。申请人的愿景是利用多小波技术的固有能力，通过提供及时准确的洪水图的智能建模基础，以及统计量化的不确定性，重新制定洪水预报方法。这项研究为申请人、英国学术界和英国工业界提供了一个独特的机会，在新兴领域建立世界领先的能力，同时解决与环境变化共存（LWEC）的优先事项，以改进环境变化的预测。该奖学金研究将刺激新的软件基础设施的创建，这些基础设施能够显著提高我们在不同长度尺度和多种不确定因素下的洪水预报能力，帮助我们更好地设计基础设施，以应对洪水风险，并对后果进行规划。

Reliable and comprehensive flood forecasting is crucial to ensure resilient cities and sustainable socio-economic development in a future faced with an unprecedented increase in atmospheric temperature and intensified precipitation. Floodwaters from the areas surrounding a city can heavily affect flood cycle behaviour across urban areas, introducing uncertainties into the forecast that are often non-negligible. However, currently the extent to which we can predict flood hazards is limited, and existing methods cannot for example deal with inter-regional dependencies (e.g. as was seen when floods affected nine different countries across Central and Eastern Europe). Presently in the UK approx. 25% of yearly flood insurance claims are from areas outside the zones forecast to be at flood risk, and annual flood damage costs are already high (approx. £1.5 billion). Also more than 20,000 houses per year continue to be built on floodplains.The need to transform flood forecasting for a range of applications and scales has already been recognised by various parties. The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017 Evidence Report prioritises flooding as the greatest direct climate change related threat for UK cities now and in the future, and urges urgent action to be taken, including the development of new solutions over the next 5 years. The hydraulic software industry and consultancy firms have expressed a desire for more reliable and sophisticated flood forecasting approaches, which can also reduce the manual labour required. In addition, mathematics and engineering research communities are still searching for forecasting models that are joined-up, reliable and efficient, as well as versatile and adaptable. To address this need, 'Multi-Wavelets' technology will be employed in this fellowship with a view to transforming flood forecasting routines from a disparate set of activities into a unified automatic framework. The applicant's vision is to exploit the innate capability of Multi-Wavelets technology to reformulate flood forecasting methods by providing a smart modelling foundation for the delivery of timely and accurate flood maps, alongside statistically quantified uncertainties. This research presents a unique opportunity for the applicant, UK academia and UK industry, to establish a world leading capability in a nascent field while addressing Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) priorities for improved forecasting of environmental change. The fellowship research will stimulate the creation of new software infrastructure capable of significantly improving our flood forecasting ability across length scales and under multiple uncertainties, helping us to better design infrastructure against flood risk and to plan for the consequences.