One year on: reviewing the floods of 2013/2014

This month’s issue of Weather, the journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, takes a look back at last winter, asking “How unusual were the storms and floods experienced by many areas of the UK during late 2013 and early 2014?”

As well as papers on the weather systems (Kendon and McCarthy) and coastal flooding (Sibley et al), Katie Muchan from CEH together with colleagues Jamie Hannaford and Simon Parry, and Melinda Lewis of the British Geological Survey, review the inland flooding, which included prolonged river flooding in many areas – notably on the Somerset Levels and in the Thames Valley – and the opening of a large number of sinkholes, bringing damage to property and affecting livelihoods.

Walking through flood water. Photo: Julia Lawrence

In the paper, Katie and her colleagues outline several key aspects of the events of last winter, concluding:

“A defining aspect of the winter was the occurrence of multiple types of flooding. The combination of coastal, pluvial, fluvial and groundwater flooding in winter is not unusual, but its extent, frequency and severity through the winter of 2013/2014 was extraordinary.” 

They add, “The simultaneous occurrence of multiple types of flooding and other weather hazards presented a major challenge for the emergency services.”

Data from the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme (NHMP) forms the source of much of the material discussed in the Muchan et al paper.

Average winter outflows (m³s^-1) for Great Britain 1961-2013

The NHMP, mentioned on many previous occasions in this blog, collates data for 104 index river flow gauging stations and 37 index groundwater boreholes in the UK, and produces monthly Hydrological Summaries.

Related links

Full citation for the paper: Muchan K, Lewis M, Hannaford J & Parry S (2015) The winter storms of 2013/2014 in the UK: hydrological responses and impacts, Weather, 70(2), 55-61. It is open access.

Weather, Special Issue: The storms of winter 2013/2014 in the UK 

Monthly Hydrological Summaries for the UK

More on the NHMP: Rainfall, UK floods and the potential impacts of climate change? 6 January 2014

Invasive alien quagga mussel arrives in UK

The invasive alien quagga mussel (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis) has arrived in the UK. The mussel was found in Wraysbury Reservoir and the Wraysbury River, a tributary of the River Colne, near Egham, Surrey.

Top threat

Earlier this year a CEH-led invasive alien species horizon scanning exercise identified the quagga mussel as the top ranking threat to the UK’s biodiversity. The study, published in Global Change Biology, concluded that the mussel poses a high risk because it is an ecosystem engineer with the potential to disrupt the ecological function of freshwater environments.

The horizon scanning exercise was carried out by scientists from more than 20 research institutes and universities with expertise on invasive alien species. It aimed to collate a list of invasive alien species not yet established within Britain but anticipated to arrive, establish and threaten biodiversity within five years.

Invasive mussels clogging a propeller. As well as altering ecosystems, the quagga mussel
can block pipes, smother boat hulls and other structures,
Photo: Government of Alberta (CC-BY-NC-ND)

Other high risk species

In addition to the quagga mussel the exercise identified a further 29 high risk species, including the Sacred ibis, the Brush clawed shore crab, the Asian hornet, and the American water-milfoil. Since the paper was published, the first UK record of the non-native Asian shore crab (Hemigrapsus sanguineus), which was included in the top 10 potential threats, has been received.

How to record sightings

An alert system operates within the UK for invasive species. The latest species alerts can be found here. If you see the quagga mussel or any other invasive alien species of concern, please report your sighting via iRecord: http://www.brc.ac.uk/irecord/enter-non-native-records

More information

The horizon scanning exercise was published in the scientific journal Global Change Biology. The paper is open access.

Full paper reference: Helen E. Roy, Jodey Peyton, David C. Aldridge, Tristan Bantock, Tim M. Blackburn, Robert Britton, Paul Clark, Elizabeth Cook, Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz, Trevor Dines, Michael Dobson, François Edwards, Colin Harrower, Martin C. Harvey, Dan Minchin, David G. Noble, Dave Parrott, Michael J.O. Pocock, Chris D. Preston, Sugoto Roy, Andrew Salisbury, Karsten Schönrogge, Jack Sewell, Richard H. Shaw , Paul Stebbing, Alan J. A. Stewart, Kevin J. Walker (2014) Horizon-scanning for invasive alien species with the potential to threaten biodiversity in Great Britain. Global Change Biology DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12603 (open access)

CEH news story:  Top 30 high risk invasive alien species with potential to threaten British biodiversity identified by scientists

UK Butterfly monitoring – explaining the schemes and surveys

There’s been lots of coverage today of a new set of data on UK butterfly numbers. You may have seen headlines such as “Farmland butterflies bounce” back and “British farmland butterflies bounce back after 2013 summer, survey finds”.

The reports are based on a new release of data which was collected in 2013 as part of the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS).

The WCBS is run by Butterfly Conservation, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH).

As today’s press release from Butterfly Conservation states “The annual survey (WCBS), running since 2009, counts butterflies in more than 850 randomly selected 1km-squares across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to assess the health of butterfly populations across the wider countryside rather than at specially managed hotspots such as nature reserves.” 

 

Common blue (photo by Ross Newham)

WCBS is part of the United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring scheme (UKBMS), which has been running since 1976, and has a remit to monitors changes in the abundance of butterflies throughout the United Kingdom since 1976. Regular readers of this blog will already know how UKBMS data contributes to some of the biodiversity indicators which inform UK environmental policy making.

For those confused by the multiple butterfly surveys and schemes operated in the UK the following details may help.

• Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey, running since 2009, aims to more effectively monitor the changing abundance of widespread butterfly species across the general countryside.
• United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring scheme, running since 1976, is very effective at monitoring habitat specialist butterflies and lowland semi-natural habitats.

According to the UKBMS website, in the 37 years the scheme has operated, "Recorders have made around a quarter of a million weekly visits to more than 1,500 separate sites, walking over half a million kilometres and counting over 16.4 million butterflies!”  

The UKBMS 2013 results should be out in a few weeks time. The 2012 results were published on 26 March 2013.

All the butterfly surveys, as well as the majority of wildlife recording in the UK, principally rely on the efforts of volunteers so I’ll leave the last word to Kate Risely. Kate co-ordinates the Breeding Bird Survey butterfly surveyors at the BTO. She commented earlier, "These results demonstrate the value of large scale volunteer surveys for monitoring country-wide trends in butterfly numbers. Recording butterflies and birds at the same sites gives us a unique insight into the health of our countryside.”

Barnaby Smith, Media Relations Manager, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Update 20 February 2013

Links to CEH news stories about the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey

2013 results Farmland butterflies thrived in 2013
2012 results Grass-feeding butterflies defy 2012 deluge
2011 results Small Tortoiseshell decline highlighted in new study

Links to CEH news stories about the United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring scheme

The 2013 results will be published in a few weeks
2012 results Washout 2012 was the worst year for UK butterflies on record
2011 results Record-breaking 2011 Spring helped some of the UK's rarer butterflies
2010 results Rare butterflies show signs of recovery
2009 results Fears grow for some of Britain's rarest butterflies
2008 results UK butterfly numbers fall to new low
2007 results Butterflies at record low after wet summer of 2007

United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring scheme data and results

Key findings including annual, 10-year and long-term (series) trends for 56 species
Reports and publications
Obtaining data

Scientists from CEH comment on the ongoing flooding situation in the UK - 13 February 2014

Scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology have provided the following new comments on the ongoing storms and flooding situation in the UK.

You can read our previous comments (published on the 11 February 2014) here.

Prof Richard Harding,  Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, on the December/January/February floods

"The weather in the last two months has been exceptional. It has been characterised by frequent rain systems tracking across the south of Britain, often associated with high winds. In January the rainfall totals were locally 300% above average and over 200% over a large part of southern England. The result of this relentless rainfall has been that soils and underlying aquifers are now full and the rivers and wetlands have more water flowing through them than has been observed for many decades.

"The repeated passage of storms over England has been caused by a persistent Jet stream to the south of its usual position. This persistence may be linked to the reduction of sea ice in the Arctic or warm sub-tropical sea temperatures. We have observed in the last five decades a rise in temperatures and an increase in the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere – these almost inevitably lead to an intensification of storms and increases in rainfall. Indeed we have observed an increase in the intensity of rainfall in this period. The last two decades have also brought exceptional extremes in our rivers and groundwater– with floods in 2000/01, 2002/3, 2007, 20011/12 and now 2013/14 interspersed with droughts in 2003 and 2011/12. All these trends are entirely consistent with the effects of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.

"In the short term the saturated nature of the ground means that rivers and low lying areas are very vulnerable to flooding. In the longer term this exceptional weather and extensive floods highlights that we are going to have to adapt to much more variability and extremes in the future."

Mr Nick Reynard, Science Area Lead for Natural Hazards, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

"After the devastating summer floods of 2007 the Pitt Review carefully analysed all aspects of how this country prepares for and deals with flooding. Post Pitt there have been two key developments in the implementation of flood forecasting science to better predict both the risks and impact of flood events. The first is the development of the Flood Forecasting Centre, which combines meteorological and hydrological expertise to provide forecasts for all natural forms of flooding - river, surface water, tidal/coastal and groundwater. River flow forecasting is underpinned by the Grid 2 Grid model developed by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.

The second significant development has been an increased focus on surface water flooding - many of the 55,000 homes affected in 2007 were flooded by a surface water event. Surface water flooding is a key focus of the recently formed Natural Hazards Partnership, which provides information, advice and analysis to government and emergency responders across the UK in the preparation, response and review of natural hazards. and brings together expertise from across the UK's leading public sector agencies and research institutes."

Mr Terry Marsh, Leader of the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

"The tempestuous weather affecting the UK has continued through the first two weeks of February 2014. It appears likely that winter rainfall totals across much of Southern Britain will be the highest on record (in the NCIC series from 1910). As a result river flows have continued to increase in parts of the country, most notably in the Thames and the Severn basins. In recent days on the Thames river flows are approaching or have exceeded maxima recorded in the last major event (November 1974). The high river flows have led to extensive floodplain inundations aggravated by groundwater flooding in many vulnerable parts of the catchment."

Scientists from CEH and BGS comment on the ongoing flooding situation in the UK - 11 February 2014

Scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and their NERC colleagues in the British Geological Survey have provided the following comments on the ongoing storms and flooding situation in the UK.

We published further comments on 13 February 2014. Read them here.


Mr Terry Marsh, Leader of the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

"One of the issues for the public perception to take on board is what we are currently seeing is the Thames exercising its natural sovereignty over its floodplain. This happens occasionally and in a sense it’s good for people to recognise that this happens. Management needs to limit the damage but it would be, I suggest, even worse if we found ourselves in the position where people thought because we’ve not seen this extent of flooding for 40 years that it’s not going to happen. It’s a natural part of the way rainfall patterns translate into river flow patterns."

Dr David Boorman, Science Area Lead for Water Resources, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

"A key question in any unusual hydrological situation, such as a drought or a period of wet weather as we are experiencing now, is how long will it continue? We are working with a number of partners to provide a long-range hydrological forecast for the UK. Forecasts of this type are already produced on an operational basis in a number of countries including the USA and Australia.

“The project involves bringing together information on the current weather, soil moisture, river flows and groundwater levels from across the UK, and using a number of methods of exploring possible future hydrological conditions, for example, using numerical models of river flows and groundwater models driven by long-range weather outlooks."

Mr Nick Reynard, Science Area Lead for Natural Hazards, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

"The cluster of drought and flood events through the early years of the 21st century and the recent runoff and recharge patterns, are near to the extreme range of historical variability as we currently understand it , and therefore also raise the question that they may reflect anthropogenic climate change. It is important to note, however that how river flows respond to extreme rainfall varies greatly because of geology, soils, land use etc, meaning that it is difficult to detect signals of climate change in observed events, and to generalise the impacts of climate change for future flooding. Tidal flood risk is increasing as sea levels rise but the outlook is more complex in relation to fluvial flooding."

Prof Alan Jenkins, Director of Water and Pollution Science, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

"The long duration of the current flooding episode and its wide spatial extent make it an exceptional event. Relentless storm events over many weeks have combined to produce widespread flooding at a scale rarely seen in the UK. Over 5000 homes have flooded and transport infrastructure has been disrupted across the UK.

“The key to mitigating the impact of any flood is understanding that every catchment works in a different way. For example the current flood situation on the Somerset Levels is the result of a different range of processes to those currently affecting the lower reaches of the River Thames. The operational agencies are doing a sterling job on the ground and it’s important to recognise that hundreds of thousands of homes have been protected by the UK’s flood defence infrastructure.

“Many potential solutions have been talked about over the last few weeks as ways of minimising flood risk. This is a complex issue and over the next few months it is important that experts from the key agencies and research institutes sit down and carefully analyse whether there are lessons to be learnt from the current flood episode."

Dr Chris Huntingford, Climate Modeller, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

"In terms of climate change, there is a desperate need to move away from the almost Punch-and-Judy debate of either every extreme is due to climate change, or the contrast of everything is simply natural variability. Desperately needed is the on-going calculation of whether higher atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are changing the chances of rainfall events, as recently witnessed, occurring.

To work this out, weather forecast models that analyse the atmosphere in such fine detail as to model storm tracks, need to be operated for different levels of modelled carbon dioxide. Running these for hundreds of modelled years for alternative carbon dioxide concentrations, so as to build up statistical profiles of rainfall patterns, presents one of the biggest computational challenges ever tackled."

Mr Simon Parry, Hydrologist, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

"Each one of these individual events has not been particularly outstanding, they've been broadly along the lines of what we would expect for a typical winter storm in the UK. What's been notable about it, and different from what we've seen in the past, is the persistence. The combination of high tides, strong winds and a succession of rain-bearing low pressure systems has led to widespread and sustained high flow conditions over a two month timeframe."

Mr Andrew McKenzie, Groundwater Information Manager, British Geological Survey

"In early December 2013 groundwater levels over much of the UK were normal for the time of year. The extreme rainfall in the southern part of England over the New Year and into early January had a dramatic impact on levels in the faster responding aquifers and spectacular rises occurred in groundwater levels in some aquifers. For example, groundwater levels in the Chalk at Tilshead on Salisbury Plain rose by about 20 metres in just two weeks. These rapid rises triggered some localised groundwater flooding, mainly in the upper parts of Chalk catchments. If rainfall had eased at that point the empty storage in the lower catchment might have been able to absorb the inflows. However, as rainfall has continued to fall the lower parts of many catchments have been saturated, and prolonged high river levels will have contributed to exceptional recharge.

“At the beginning of February record monthly groundwater levels were measured across many aquifers, and as levels in February are naturally high, these records are often all time records for the sites concerned. Record levels were established in the Chalk of Wessex, the North Downs and Hampshire. The wet weather also reversed a declining trend in some of the North West Permo-Triassic aquifers.

“Consequently, emergence of groundwater has been observed at many localities across southern England where groundwater flooding has been previously recorded. The high water levels on the interfluves (the upper parts of groundwater catchments) will gradually feed into the lower parts of the catchments, over a period of weeks to months, so groundwater flooding is expected to persist."

Additional information

Journalists can contact the CEH Press Office or the BGS Press Office for further context on the UK's hydrological situation. 

Further information from CEH can be found in the following blog posts:

Record breakers? Climate change, statistics and the recent UK floods - 9 February 2014

Rainfall, UK floods and the potential impacts of climate change? - 6 January 2014

CEH worked with the Met Office on a report on the recent storms and floods in the UK.

Biodiversity indicators and the Biological Records Centre

The 2013 update to the UK Biodiversity Indicators has just been published on the JNCC website.
 
CEH scientists working within the Biological Records Centre contribute to several of the indicators, building on our wealth of knowledge and links to most of the UK's wildlife recording schemes. In particular, for 2013, our scientists have contributed to development of the new index on the status of priority species (C4a).

Dr Nick Isaac of CEH explains more:

"The new indicator C4a uses data from national surveys, such as the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. The index provides an annual summary of the abundance of 210 mammal, bird, butterfly and moth species, all of which have been identified as priorities for the four national conservation agencies. This property makes this index much more sensitive than the old C4, in which species were categorised as declining, stable or increasing based on expert opinion."

"In addition, we also produced a supplementary index based on distribution data. These 'biological records' are not collected in a standardised way, which makes the data extremely noisy and liable to produce biased estimates of species trends. Within the Biological Records Centre, we've invested heavily in trying to understand this bias, and to extract a meaningful signal of change from the noise in the data. This investment has now paid off, because we're now able to report on the status of  taxonomic groups, such as bees, that lack standardised monitoring schemes."

"Both the abundance and distribution-based indicators show a decline of 50-60% since 1970, reinforcing the message that conservation agencies have their work cut out to prevent more species from going extinct."

More details of the C4a indicator can be found in the technical report, "Status of threatened species - status of priority species".

Other UK biodiversity indicators with CEH involvement include:

• C6. Insects of the wider countryside (butterflies) population (data from CEH's joint stewardship of the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme with Butterfly Conservation)

• C2. Habitat Connectivity (Countryside Survey data)

• B6. Pressure from Invasive species (reflecting our work with the National Biodiversity Network)

• B5. Pressure from Pollution

• C7. Plants of the wider countryside (data from CEH's Countryside Survey)

CEH science also played a key role in the 2011 National Ecosystem Assessment, which is the basis of Indicator D2. Biodiversity and ecosystem services (terrestrial).

Additional information

Biological Records Centre

Staff page of Dr Nick Isaac, CEH

National hydrometric data - what does the future bring for the UK's NRFA?

In two previous blog posts this month, we explored how the hydrometric data held by the National River Flow Archive and the National Groundwater Level Archive have been used in past and present scientific research, and how such a valuable data resource is vital for taking a long view of both hydrological trends and significant one-off events. Our series has coincided with a special meeting, on Tuesday 22 October 2013, to celebrate 30 years of the NRFA being hosted at CEH's Wallingford site. To conclude the series, Jamie Hannaford, head of the National River Flow Archive, looks to the future and at what the next few years might bring...

The past 30 years have seen incredible change in how we do our jobs, most obviously in the technology used to gather and disseminate hydrometric data. The next 30 years will undoubtedly see huge change again. When you think about it, 30 years is a generational timescale, it's a career span, it's a period that can expect to see life-changing developments. Hydrometric data and analysis is already important to society for underpinning effective water management, but it will assume even greater importance in global water management over the next 30 years, thanks to the challenges of population growth and movement, land use change and of climate change leading to an intensification of the hydrological cycle.

The NRFA, as the UK's national hydrometric information service, will be crucial to meeting these challenges, lying as it does at the heart of the hydrometric information lifecycle and managing as it does a long-term archive that will be able to take an ever longer view of events such as the 2010-2012 drought to flood transformation. Reliable, easily accessible, contextualised data and analysis will play a key role as scientists and water practitioners meet the world's water resource management needs.

The NRFA already provides its data and analysis in many formats

From the original print publications the NRFA delivered in the 1980s, to the digital outputs it now provides, our data is already, and will continue to be, served in many formats, but our fundamental maxim will always be to turn the data into valuable information. We always make sure we know where the data is coming from, so we can guide our end users.

The technological landscape will certainly continue to develop. Will we be a nation of armchair hydrologists by 2043? In some respects, thanks to remote sensing and satellite capabilities, it's possible to some extent now. But as well as opportunities, technology brings its own challenges - both in the huge amount of data that can be gathered and in the interpretation and validation of that data. For all the hydrometric data that can be gathered, we still need to understand what it is telling us. And we still need our monitoring partners to collect data first-hand to complement the models and the satellite technology.

The provision of reliable hydrometric data in the 21st century will be
crucial for global water management

Future developments

An important area for the NRFA now is to look at how to integrate our river flow data with other types of monitoring, for example near real-time soil moisture data, citizen science initiatives etc, to build up a fuller environmental picture. Our role will be to bring these other types of information together with the river flows; to help with interpreting and understanding them in context with other environmental variables.

Currently we are reviewing our hydrological summaries and looking at different options for enhancement, for example using the best modelling capabilities from CEH and other organisations to deliver improved outlooks and better drought indicators. We are working more closely than ever with international colleagues in organisations such as the US National Drought Mitigation Center and CSIRO in Australia, and aim to improve the information that we and other national hydrometric data providers can supply. It is a challenging task to undertake when hydrometric networks are under pressure worldwide, along with the resources for long-term monitoring.

In the shorter term, you can expect the NRFA to offer daily catchment rainfall on its website from next year. We will also be taking on the validation for HiFlows-UK, the UK's principal source of flood peak data, and making this available from our website in the near future.

Who can really say what the NRFA in 2043 will look like? The last 30 years have been a tremendous effort of stewardship, and the next 30 years will be also, but we are ready and able for the challenge, thanks to the support of our partners. Our data and analysis has informed the likes of the Pitt Review on flooding, which followed the 2007 summer floods, as well as the National Ecosystem Assessment and the IPCC's recent 2013 climate change assessment. We will continue to give that much needed national, strategic assessment that is crucial for water management in this country.

Jamie Hannaford

Additional reading

Dixon, H, Hannaford, J and Fry, M J, 2013, The effective management of national hydrometric data: experiences from the United Kingdom. Hydrological Sciences Journal.

The 2010-2012 drought and subsequent extensive flooding - a remarkable hydrological transformation by Terry Marsh, Simon Parry, Mike Kendon & Jamie Hannaford. 2013. PDF [7.05mb]

Hydrometric data - the long view (first in our special blog series on the NRFA and hydrometric data)

An unprecedented hydrological transformation (second in our blog series)

View photos from the NRFA 30th anniversary event on Flickr

Related links

National River Flow Archive

Staff page of Jamie Hannaford, CEH

An unprecedented hydrological transformation

A huge number of scientific papers have delved into the extraordinary data held by the National River Flow Archive and National Groundwater Level Archive. As our blog series on hydrometric data continues, Simon Parry of CEH (right) discusses one of the most recent papers to use the data, newly published in the Weather journal, which analyses the dramatic transformation from drought to flood in the UK during the summer of 2012.

Whilst this year's fine and dry summer was very much welcome, it was not typical of the more unsettled summers of the last few years. Although the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012 were spared the worst of the weather, from April 2012 onwards a succession of wet fronts drenched the UK, in particular England & Wales, resulting in the wettest year for more than a century.

This episode emphatically put to an end concerns about the water resources situation, which saw hosepipe bans implemented in April across south, central and eastern England affecting 20 million consumers. Recent research by CEH scientists, in collaboration with the UK Met Office, published last month in Weather, finds that the transformation from drought to floods in England & Wales is without modern parallel in the historical record (Parry et al. 2013).

The extreme drought of 1975-76 remains the most severe in the historical record, most likely the worst experienced in the UK for at least the last 250 years (Rodda & Marsh 2011). This episode was terminated dramatically in September and October 1976, over which time England & Wales received almost double the long-term average rainfall.

The 2010-12 drought did not reach the same intensity as 1975-76 (Kendon et al. 2013); the summers were not hot or particularly dry in 2010-12, in contrast with heatwave-dominated droughts in 1976 and 2003. However, the rainfall shortages were concentrated in the winter half-years (October-March), a vital time for the recovery of water resources and, as such, outflows from England & Wales in March 2012 were lower than the corresponding point in 1976. Hosepipe bans were implemented in several areas at the end of the normal groundwater recharge season (April); there was little prospect of improvement in the water resources situation, barring something extraordinary happening...

Something extraordinary did happen. Whilst the transformation in 2012 may not have been as spectacular in rainfall terms as that of 1976, England & Wales recorded new record rainfall (series from 1766; Alexander & Jones 2001) for April, June and the summer half-year (April-September), and April-December 2012 was the wettest of any nine-month period in ~250 years.

Flood damage in England, December 2012. Photo: Heather Lowther

Groundwater recharge through the summer half-year

The most important impact of the succession of rain-bearing frontal systems was to re-wet soils which allowed the replenishment of groundwater to resume. What made the transformation in 2012 particularly unprecedented was the resumption of groundwater recharge through the summer half-year; the patterns of hydrological response tracked in the opposite direction to normal seasonal conditions.

Perhaps owing to the British preoccupation with the weather, much attention is given to rainfall figures in characterising the water situation in this country. However, water resources are more complex than this; the relationship between rainfall and runoff is not one-to-one, owing to catchment characteristics and antecedent conditions.

The distinction between a transformation in rainfall and the unprecedented hydrological transformation is an important one; the former would not necessarily have terminated hydrological drought conditions, but the latter did so emphatically. If there had been no concurrent response in groundwater levels following the rainfall, it is likely that hosepipe bans would have remained in place even through a moderately wet summer. This would have been a difficult message for the water companies to communicate to the public, so perhaps the industry was happy on more than one level to have witnessed a hydrological transformation without modern parallel.

Simon Parry

Simon Parry is a hydrologist based at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology's Wallingford site.

 

References

Alexander, L V, and Jones, P D (2001) Updated precipitation series for the UK and discussion of recent extremes. Atmospheric Science Letters, 1, 142-150.

Kendon, M, Marsh, T and Parry, S (2013) The 2010-2012 drought in England and Wales. Weather, 68 (4), 88-95.

Parry, S, Marsh, T and Kendon, M (2013) 2012: from drought to floods in England and Wales. Weather, 68 (10), 268-274.

Rodda, J C and Marsh, T J (2011) The 1975-76 drought - a contemporary and retrospective review, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. 58pp. [PDF, 13mb]

Additional information

A comprehensive report by Terry Marsh, Simon Parry and Jamie Hannaford, in collaboration with Mike Kendon (Met Office), on the 2010-12 drought and subsequent hydrological transformation will be published later this month and will be available to download freely from the CEH website.

Next in our hydrometric data blog series, Looking forward - where the archives are going next... Watch this space!

Related links

CEH Blog: Hydrometric data - the long view

National River Flow Archive  

CEH's agri-science research showcased in new timeline

Research carried out by scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology over recent decades is showcased in a new timeline, published by Research Councils UK (RCUK) to coincide with the government's agricultural technologies industrial strategy. RCUK is the strategic partnership of the UK's seven research councils, who annually invest around £3 billion in research.

The timeline, "Growing with agri-science", highlights key research that has taken place since the 1940s, demonstrating the variety of approaches the research councils take to support innovation and deliver long-term impact from the research they fund.

Highlights from CEH include:

• Carrying out the first ever Countryside Survey in 1978

• Training farmers to create bumblebee habitats through Operation Bumblebee in 2008 (a forerunner of Operation Pollinator)

• CEH's work on assessment of agri-environment schemes for Natural England and Defra

• Our major contribution to the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UKNEA) in 2011

• Our work on assessing the risk to crops from ozone damage (which includes this recent report)

• Development of the MySoil smartphone app with BGS which calls on members of the public to help map soil type across Europe

• Recent research that found that bacteria responsible for Johne's disease (chronic intestinal inflammation in cattle), and also implicated in Crohn's disease in humans, are widespread in UK rivers and soil

• Our leadership of the UK Farm Scale Evaluations, informing UK and EU policy decisions on genetically modified crops

 The timeline can be viewed on the RCUK website.

CEH's research covers agri-science across the landscape

 Related links

UK agricultural technologies strategy

NERC welcomes the UK's strategy for agricultural technologies

Communicating CEH Lake Restoration research – we’re speaking the same language!

In the UK we take it for granted that our work will be presented in English. However, presenting our work in English does not always allow us to reach the widest possible audience. This was all too apparent to two PhD students based at CEH’s Edinburgh site who realised that they could increase the exposure of their work by attending conferences in their home countries (Germany and Poland) and presenting their work in their native languages. As the students highlight to us below, this has been an enlightening and rewarding process.

The workshop “Lake remediation – Experiences and new challenges (Seentherapie - Erfahrungen und neue Herausforderungen) organized by the IGB Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (Germany) in March 2013 offered the opportunity to exchange and discuss experiences in the expanding field of lake remediation measures between experts from consultancies, agencies and scientists. Sebastian Meis presented the findings of his PhD study on the use of a phosphorus (P) binding and P-capping agent for sediment P-release management in shallow lakes in the session “Eutrophication control measures” (“Technische Maßnahmen zur Verminderung der Eutrophierung”).
 


Delegates at the Lake remediation workshop organised by the IGB Leibniz-
Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany in March 2013



Sebastian said, “This was a great opportunity to present my work in my native language, and to increase the exposure of CEH research more widely. The feedback on our work was very positive and I learned that similar projects are being conducted at a relatively large scale in Germany as part of the EU Water Framework Directive.”   

Whilst in Gdansk, Poland, Justyna Olszewska was giving an invited lecture on CEH’s research on lake restoration to the Gdansk Water Foundation, in Polish. The Foundation organises seminars focusing on the "hot" topics in the field, and given 2013 was officially nominated “Lake Year" by the Marshal Office of Pomerania Region, this seminar was devoted to the subject of lake restoration.

Justyna said, “Introducing CEH’s lake restoration research in Polish was a very interesting experience. It allowed me to compare the results of restoration work conducted in the UK with the Polish experiences in this area. It was great to discuss management issues with Polish scientists and local authorities and we now have a much better appreciation of the problems shared by both countries.

"Being a native speaker was definitely helpful, both during the presentation and discussions, but also during the social events. What was evident was that literal translation of scientific terminology is not always possible, or clear, and that follow-up discussions are important for ensuring that the scientific content is properly communicated. In addition, gaining general knowledge of the environmental problems in my home country has helped me put my work in Scotland into the wider context.“

Dr Bryan Spears of CEH, supervisor of both Sebastian and Justyna, said, “I thought it was really impressive that Justyna and Seb wanted to present at these meetings in their own language. From the feedback we have had from both meetings it has clearly helped fuel debate and increase interest in our work.”

Copies of both presentations can be viewed at the following links:

• Sebastian's [in German, PDF, 2.9mb]
• Justyna's [in Polish, PDF, 3.7mb]


Related CEH links

CEH 's UK Lake Restoration research

Staff page of Dr Bryan Spears

Thanks to Sebastian Meis and Justyna Olszewska

Assessing the 2013 Atlantic Puffin wreck

Three weeks on from the first reports of a puffin ‘wreck’ in Eastern Scotland and NE England CEH’s seabird ecology team are beginning to assess the longer term impact on the overall population. With help from members of the public and organisations such as the RSPB, SNH and the Scottish Seabird Centre we’ve been able to put together a map of locations where dead birds have been reported. Other species have also been found dead on the beaches of the East Coast, including guillemots, razorbills, shags and kittiwakes.

Google Map showing locations of reported seabird 'wrecks'

View 2013 Puffin wreck in a larger map

There are now two key questions: why did it happen and what impact will it have on the populations?

Prof Mike Harris writes, “All the Puffins we have examined so far have been emaciated, had empty stomachs, atrophied breast muscles and lacking subcutaneous and mesenteric fat – in other words the proximate cause of death appears to be starvation. Deciding whether this was due to lack of food, an inability to feed efficiently or to some other factor(s) is much more tricky.”

Later this month (in the week starting 29^th April) CEH scientists and volunteers will carry out an assessment of the puffin population on the Isle of May. We have been monitoring seabird populations on the Isle of May for more than 40 years, and carry out a full count every five years, so by July we hope to know the effects of the 2013 wreck at this colony. As more than half the corpses were of breeding age we expect adult survival to be lower than normal. However, whether this will result in a measurable decrease in numbers breeding is unclear.

Another serious wreck (in 1983) did not result in a demonstrable reduction in breeding numbers of puffins on the Isle of May. However in the 1980s the population was increasing rapidly. The last puffin count on the Isle of May (in 2008) showed that the population was no longer increasing, so it remains to be seen whether it is still sufficiently resilient to cope with the 2013 wreck or if breeding numbers will decline.

Prof Mike Harris and Prof Sarah Wanless of CEH have written a detailed article on the 2013 ‘wreck’ which will be published in the next issue of British Birds (1 May) and also on the British Birds website.

Additional information

Images of the puffin 'wreck' as well as images of puffins on the Isle of May can be found in our recently updated 2013 Puffin 'wreck' Flickr set.

CEH's Seabird Ecology research  

RSPB Scotland

Scottish Natural Heritage

Scottish Seabird Centre

2012 – a bad year for butterflies?

Butterflies have been making headlines in the UK today, but sadly not for good reasons. New results from the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) were released earlier, and the figures show that in 2012 13 of the UK’s 50+ species of butterfly suffered their worst year on record. Only four species saw their populations increase.

Last year’s relentless rain and cold, previously documented by CEH in our monthly hydrological summaries, created disastrous conditions for many butterfly species as they struggled to find food, shelter and mating opportunities.

Marsh Fritillary - down 71% in 2012 (photo: Tim Melling / Butterfly Conservation)

UKBMS is run by CEH and our partners in the scheme Butterfly Conservation (BC) and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, and has collated records since 1976. The scheme now involves thousands of volunteers collecting data every week throughout the summer from more than 1,000 sites across the UK. CEH and BC are very grateful to all the volunteer recorders for their hard work and tenacity in walking their butterfly transects during 2012.

  

The full table of results (pdf) comparing 2012 to 2011, giving details for 56 butterfly species found in the UK, can be accessed on the UKBMS website. Last year I blogged about how the UKBMS annual figures are used as indicators by Government to monitor long term changes in the UK’s biodiversity (See: Butterflies, biodiversity indicators and long-term change).



More information on the 2012 results can be found on the CEH and Butterfly Conservation websites. If you’d like to know more about the methodology behind the scheme this page on the UKBMS website should help.

Barnaby Smith