About Drought Handbook: Outputs & Impacts

Seasonal Hydrological
Forecasts
“Since September 2018 we have been providing bespoke hydrological forecasts for
the Environment Agency’s area teams based on their reasonable worst case scenarios
and stress test scenarios. They have been used internally and for National Drought
Group briefings – it is a real success story.”
Jamie Hannaford, Principal Hydrologist, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
A key need addressed by About
Drought has been improved access
to early warning information,
especially for hydrological
forecasting.
Since 2013 a Hydrological Outlook
had been provided by the Centre
for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), the
Met Office and BGS, producing a
static document that gives a 1-page
summary for the UK as a whole,
followed by regional and national
information. But that did not allow
users to access a forecast for the
particular river in the UK that they
were interested in.
Under About Drought that has
become possible.
Our project IMPETUS aimed
to improve drought forecasting
for decision-makers, building on
information gathered at a host
of stakeholder workshops to
establish current practices and their
needs across water supply, health,
power, agriculture, navigation and
recreation.
It developed a new methodology
of forecasting and the follow-on
project ENDOWS gave researchers
the opportunity to develop
IMPETUS’ methods. Now an insight
into hydrological conditions over
the coming three months, with likely
trajectories for flows in 300 rivers
around the UK and groundwater
levels is available.
Jamie Hannaford, ENDOWS’
Principal Investigator and Principal
Hydrologist at CEH, says: “The
science was done in IMPETUS. We
tested the methods, validating them
to see how reliable and accurate
they are around the country and at
different times of the year.
“Then in ENDOWS we opened up
the forecasts and operationalised
that system to the extent that these
hydrological forecasts are now
available in the first few days of every
month. Since the summer of 2018
we have worked with a very wide
range of stakeholders, providing
them with forecasts for the river
catchments that are relevant and
ensuring that they meet user needs.
In last summer’s drought conditions
when many stakeholders needed
reliable information about what
would happen next, they have told
us that these forecasts were very
useful.”
The forecasts have been provided
to a wide range of users, including
water companies, the Environment
Agency (EA), Natural Resources
Wales, the Scottish Environmental
Protection Agency, the National
Farmers’ Union, energy industry
and the Canal & River Trust.
Jamie adds: “Since September
2018 we have also been providing
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bespoke hydrological forecasts for
the Environment Agency’s area
teams based on their reasonable
worst case scenarios and stress
test scenarios. They have been used
internally and for National Drought
Group briefings – it is a real success
story.
“In the dry spell of Summer 2018
we started providing hydrological
outlooks to Yorkshire Water who
wanted to specifically look at
the likelihood of reaching certain
flow thresholds for their internal
management, and we came up with
a bespoke outlook for them.
“These are just two examples
that illustrate the benefit of having
the extra ENDOWS knowledge
exchange and synthesis funding for
the programme. It has enabled the
excellent science from IMEPTUS to
fulfil its potential, it gave researchers
the time to hear directly from
stakeholders how it could be used,
to refine our outputs to make them
user-friendly, for example through
data visualisation. We listened and as
a result they were able to use them
to access better information in a
live situation in the 2018 drought.
Users said they were pleased to
see that this project produced such
useful information, and that there
is a pathway for this science to be
continued after ENDOWS, through
the Hydrological Outlook.”