Impact of climate change on UK flooding and future predictions

Climate change modelling has improved significantly in recent years and the impact of climate change on flooding in the UK and internationally has become an area of increased importance. Flooding in the UK occurs for a range of reasons; this paper examines some of the predicted changes related to rainfall processes. The different types of rainfall in the UK can be categorised into groups such as frontal, orographic and convective, and combinations of these. Notable flooding events in the UK in recent years have been caused by different types of rainfall; Boscastle in 2004 and the widespread autumn 2000 floods being examples of quite different rainfall processes. Predicting how different types of flood-producing rainfall will change in the future climate presents researchers with major challenges, including that of spatial scale and uncertainty in the predictions. This paper highlights some of these challenges and looks at areas where future research could be focused.