Ouseburn Catchment (UK)

The Ouseburn catchment is located in the north-east of England and it's one of the six case studies in the HydroEurope project. It is a small catchment nestled within the city of Newcastle, discharging into the River Tyne at the Ouseburn barrage. Our study area covers 55 square kilometres, culminating at the Crag Hall gauging station. The catchment is low-gradient with moderately permeable soil and is heavily urbanised. 

Whilst the Ouseburn is predominantly open channel, there are some culverted sections and many of its tributaries are culverted, becoming ‘hidden rivers’ in the city’s drainage system. Remarkably, even these hidden tributaries pose flood risks during large events, as evidenced by occurrences like 'Thunder Thursday' or the 'Toon Monsoon' in June 2012. During such events, High water levels in downstream rivers blocked the tributaries, leading to pressurized water in the Lort Burn, causing incidents like the blowing off of a manhole cover on Dean Street in the heart of the city. 

With climate change, there is high confidence that communities are likely to suffer greater threats from extreme precipitation and pluvial/fluvial flooding. The UKCP18 projections predict that winters will be warmer and wetter and summers hotter and drier, with an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events, including heavy summer rainfall events like the Toon Monsoon. It is therefore of vital importance to understand rainfall and flood behaviour in order to manage flooding effectively under future conditions. 

In this case study we will be: 1) Treating rainfall data and generating design storms for current and climate change scenarios in the Ouseburn catchment; 2) Modelling and comparing current and future flows in the catchment; 3) calculating flood hazard under current and climate change conditions.