Coronavirus backgrounder

[Update: more dashboards local to Cambridgeshire shown in next blogpost]

This pandemic affects us all. You might be reading this from home. And while social distancing may become the norm, social isolation needn't be: Use social media, ye olde telephone, reach out! Here are some local resources gleaned from group meetings, the twitterverse and simple curiosity.

Low tech / high tech map updates

[ Update: see a follow-on post on how a poster helps get the sea level rise message in context ]

At last summer Street for Life (S4L) and Cottenham Beach Party events by Extinction Rebellion (XR) Cambridge, a simple sea level rise map was a hit with children and adults alike: I simply stuck on cardboard backing an Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map of Cambridge on side, and villages immediately north on the other. The +5 and +15 m. sea level rises (SLR) from the 2006 firetreemap  were hand-drawn, but eyeballing it made it pretty inaccurate... and +15 and +5 m. were picked because they overlapped Cambridge and villages north, rather than anything scientific!

Listen to the scientists

[Update 2: in Part II, XR Cambridge Rebel Scientists produced a video tying it all together
Update: East Anglia Fenlands + London Thames Valley inundation models now on YouTube!]

This is what happened at the first Extinction Rebellion Cambridge working group of concerned  scientists, on the topic of sea level rise (SLR) among many others discussed then. As posted earlier here, the scientific consensus lies at 0.5 and 2 m. SLR by mid- and end-century in moderate emissions and far-tail scenarios, respectively. That meeting reiterated, however, the importance of an extreme scenario, ~ 6 m. SLR from the melting of various ice sheets: 7 m. is in fact the default SLR setting for the original sea level rise map, flood.firetree.net.

Climate Emergency maps as easy as 1-2-3

Almost 2½ years ago I blogged then presented Emergency response maps as easy as 1-2-3 - in fact that helped spur on my current venture described in previous posts - and now apply the same to do inundation maps from sea level rise as well as river run-off.

Areas affected by sea level rise scenarios

Local Community Engagement 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, & 12

[ Update: There follows a tally here of what we've collected so far. ]

So far we've looked at sea level rise, timing, temperature regime and risk of flooding from land and from sea. These scenarios were developed using open data from Ordnance Survey and Climate Central for elevation models, UK Met Office for temperature and DEFRA for flooding. This was also put in a time and IPCC scenario context from scientific publications.

The second most important thing  for East Anglia Fenlands residents after the timing of such scenarios, is the actual areas affected by them. Having collected all the underpinning information, it was a matter of overlaying climate data with settlement data: infrastructure was posted in Part 2  from OS Open Zoomstack, and settlements were posted in Part 6 as a local Wikimedia gazetteer.

Flood risk model

Local Community Engagement 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 &11

[Update 1: Part 12 describes Cambridgeshire Parishes affected by sea level rise
Update 2: here is a Story Map that explains the background info to this project
Update 3: this Story Map relates flash floods and not river or coastal inundation]

Village Voice

Local Community Engagement 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10

[Update: Part 11 adds flood risks to coastal inundation and temperature regime models]

Temperature Regime

Local Community Engagement 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9

[Update: Part 10 follows up village engagement process via recent Parish Council update]

Coastal Inundation

Local Community Engagement 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8

[Update: Part 9 on temperature anomaly scenarios further constrains the debate]

Mock Press Release

Local Community Engagement 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7

[ Updates: Part 8 on coastal inundation scenarios adds some parameters in the debate.

Part 13 is a manifesto that wraps the series together with some forward looking ideas.

"Digital nomads and digital divides" posted in Parliament late 2020 is discussed here. ]