News

  • What are the implications of coastal Flooding? Video by Robert Nicholls.

    What are the implications of coastal Flooding? Video by Robert Nicholls.

    Robert Nicholls holds a chair in Coastal Engineering in Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton. In this video he describes the implications of coastal flooding. What are the implications of coastal flooding? Coastal flooding can be devastating, leading to severe disruption and economic damage, flooding of homes and personal trauma, and in the extreme loss of life as in 1953 on the…

  • Do you have photos of coastal flooding?

    Do you have photos of coastal flooding?

    Do you have any photographs of coastal flooding from recent or past events which you are willing to share? When accompanied by a time and location, photos can be useful to help us estimate  which areas were flooded and to what water depth. Photos can be easily uploaded to our website. This can be done by going to the appropriate event page and clicking on the button ‘contribute photos’…

  • How do we measure sea level? Video by Matthew Wadey.

    How do we measure sea level? Video by Matthew Wadey.

    Dr Matthew Wadey is a postdoctoral researcher in Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton. In this video he describes how we measure sea level. In SurgeWatch we use sea level records from the UK National Tide Gauge Network. This network consists of 43 operational tide gauges and was set up as a result of the sever flooding in 31 January – 1st February 1953. The…

  • Historic Events: The Bristol Channel Floods of 1607

    Historic Events: The Bristol Channel Floods of 1607

    By Shari Gallop The UK coastline has been subject to terrible storms and floods throughout history. Over the coming weeks we will briefly explore a number of significant effects (that lie outside of the 100 year period, 1915 – 2015, that SurgeWatch current covers). Today we will start with the British Channel Floods of 1607, which caused the greatest loss of life from a natural catastrophe…

  • Why and how did we create SurgeWatch

    Why and how did we create SurgeWatch

    There are two main reasons we started compiling the SurgeWatch database. First, the winter of 2013/14 saw some of the UK’s most extreme sea levels, waves and coastal flooding for several decades. During this period storms repeatedly subjected large areas of our coast to enormous stress and damage, reminding us of the real and ever-present risks and challenges facing coastal communities today. We wanted to understand how…

  • Welcome to SurgeWatch - Video by Ivan Haigh

    Welcome to SurgeWatch - Video by Ivan Haigh

    Dr Ivan Haigh is a lecturer in coastal oceanography at the University of Southampton. He works at Ocean and Earth Science, based at the prestigious National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. In this video he explains what SurgeWatch is. SurgeWatch is a systematic UK-wide record of high sea level and coastal flood events over the last 100 years (1915 – 2014). It has been compiled by a…