A NEW APPROACH TO CALCULATE EXTREME STORM SURGES

Abstract

ABSTRACTClimate change and its consequences, for example for sea level, will have serious effects on the safety of people and economic assets in coastal areas. The uncertainties inherent in climate change necessitate new concepts of coastal protection and risk management. In the project Xtrem Risk, the ‘source pathway receptor’ concept will be used as a basis for risk analysis and the development of new strategies.The objective of this paper is to determine relevant extreme events. The paper will give an overview of findings from the analyses which were conducted and the method which was developed for calculating extreme storm surge events at different tidal gauges. These extreme scenarios are necessary for risk analyses and can also be used for design levels.Here a deterministic method will be used which takes the physics of storm surges into account. The most relevant contributions to a storm surge are spring tide, wind surge and sometimes an external surge that enters the North Sea from the Atlantic. With the method that has been developed, these three components will be analysed and their development and non‐linear interaction over the last 100 years will be assessed. Since the storm surge curve is necessary for analysis, the curve and its components are also analyzed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.