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The potential impacts of extreme water level events on our coasts are increasing as populations grow and sea levels rise. To better prepare for the future, coastal engineers and managers need accurate estimates of average exceedance probabilities for extreme water levels. In this paper, we estimate present day probabilities of extreme water levels around the entire coastline of Australia. Tides and storm surges generated by extra-tropical storms were included by creating a 61-year (1949-2009) hindcast of water levels using a high resolution depth averaged hydrodynamic model driven with meteorological data from a global reanalysis. Tropical cyclone-induced surges were included through numerical modelling of a database of synthetic tropical cyclones equivalent to 10,000 years of cyclone activity around Australia. Predicted water level data was analysed using extreme value theory to construct return period curves for both the water level hindcast and synthetic tropical cyclone modelling. These return period curves were then combined by taking the highest water level at each return period.

Item Type:	Refereed Conference Paper
Keywords:	water levels, storm surges, tropical cyclones, numerical modelling, average exceedance probabilities
Research Division:	Earth Sciences
Research Group:	Hydrology
Research Field:	Surface water hydrology
Objective Division:	Environmental Management
Objective Group:	Other environmental management
Objective Field:	Other environmental management not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	George, S (Dr Steve George)
ID Code:	116375
Year Published:	2012
Deposited By:	CRC-Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems
Deposited On:	2017-05-09
Last Modified:	2017-06-21
Downloads:	134 View Download Statistics