• Bookstore

POL in Liverpool is home to several research and monitoring programmes concerned with sea level rise and coastal flooding. One of its major programmes involves continuous monitoring to provide a global data bank of sea and land level changes around Britain's coastline.

POL scientists are also responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Storm Tide Forecasting Service, in collaboration with the Environment Agency and the Met Office. They provide the 48-hour warnings that the Environment Agency use to make decisions on when to raise flood defences, such as the Thames Barrier that protects London from major tidal surges.

POL is collaborating with the Met Office Hadley Centre in a project that forms part of the Environment Agency's Thames Estuary 2100 programme. Using computer models the project will address the issue of how to protect the Thames from flooding this century by indicating whether or not extreme water levels will change in the future.

Dr Kevin Horsburgh said:

?The Thames Estuary 2100 programme will provide a decision framework for flood defence strategy in the region over the next 100 years. There are obviously many engineering options, and our long term records of sea and land levels are critical to those decisions.?