GC8-Hydro-85, updated on 08 May 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-gc8-hydro-85
A European vision for hydrological observations and experimentation
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

A Vision for Transformative Hydrological Monitoring – Planning for the UK Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI)

Jonathan Evans1, John Bloomfield2, Gemma Coxon3, Simon Teagle1, Wouter Buytaert4, Matt Fry1, Lucy Ball1, Ali Rudd1, James Sorensen2, Nick Chappell5, Thorsten Wagener6, and Gareth Old1
Jonathan Evans et al.
  • 1UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, OX10 8BB, UK (jge@ceh.ac.uk)
  • 2British Geological Survey, Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, OX10 8BB, UK
  • 3University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences, University Rd, Bristol BS8 1SS
  • 4Imperial College London, Skempton Building, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ
  • 5Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom, LA1 4YQ
  • 6Institute for Environmental Sciences and Geography, University of Potsdam, Germany

Here we present the UK vision for new world-leading hydrological observation networks and sensor innovation test beds that will provide the long-term datasets needed to enable the mitigation of the impacts of hydrological extremes. Plans are underway for a Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI). This represents a major capital investment expected to be funded by the UK Research and Innovation Infrastructure Fund and delivered through the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) at an estimated cost of £38m. FDRI is urgently needed to make the UK more adaptable and resilient to floods and droughts. It will include major new hydrological catchment instrumentation, with innovative technology to provide observations of key components of the terrestrial water cycle, and in-field facilities for trialling and developing new sensing technologies. Extensive community consultation and reviews have identified key science questions that are being used to inform infrastructure design. Successful impact will be enabled through strong investment in digital infrastructure to achieve a hydrological data commons. Integrated near real-time datasets will be publicly accessible, consolidated and inter-operable, ready for application specific analysis and modelling. As FDRI planning develops, there are opportunities to design-in the latest thinking on catchment monitoring strategies with innovative sensing, and to ensure that long-term hydrological datasets will be able to answer a wide variety of future research questions.

How to cite: Evans, J., Bloomfield, J., Coxon, G., Teagle, S., Buytaert, W., Fry, M., Ball, L., Rudd, A., Sorensen, J., Chappell, N., Wagener, T., and Old, G.: A Vision for Transformative Hydrological Monitoring – Planning for the UK Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI), A European vision for hydrological observations and experimentation, Naples, Italy, 12–15 Jun 2023, GC8-Hydro-85, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-gc8-hydro-85, 2023.