GHD Storm Tide Study
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Gold Coast City Council Storm Tide Study Final Report Addendum February 2013 Contents Executive Summary viii 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Background 1 1.2 Aims and Objectives 1 1.3 Definitions 2 1.4 Study Area vs Modelling Domain 5 1.5 Scope and Limitations 5 2. Methodology Overview 8 2.1 Tropical Cyclone Storm Tide Risks 8 2.2 Extra-Tropical and Remote Tropical Cyclone Storm Tide Risks 11 3. Project Data 13 3.1 Bathymetry and Coastline 13 3.2 Hydrographic Data 13 3.3 Tidal Constituents, Predictions and Observations 14 3.4 Wave Climate 16 4. Regional Meteorology 17 4.1 Tropical Cyclone Climatology 17 4.2 Extra-Tropical Climatology 25 5. Numerical Model Development 29 5.1 Tropical Cyclone Wind and Pressure Model 29 5.2 Hydrodynamic Model 29 5.3 Spectral Wave Model 35 5.4 Establishment of the Parametric Tropical Cyclone Models 36 5.5 Simulation Modelling of Tropical Cyclone Impacts 38 5.6 Modelling of Extra-Tropical and Remote Tropical Cyclone Impacts 39 6. Tropical Cyclone Model Calibration and Verification 45 6.1 Deterministic Verification of the Tropical Cyclone Models 45 6.2 Statistical Verification of the Tropical Cyclone Simulation Model 45 7. Results for Present Climate 48 41/22526/412243 Storm Tide Study i Final Report Addendum 7.1 Tropical Cyclone Impacts 48 7.2 Extra-Tropical and Remote Tropical Cyclone Impacts 57 7.3 Combined Climate Storm Tide Impacts 57 7.4 Design Water Level Hydrographs 62 8. Possible Impacts of Climate Change 63 8.1 The Enhanced Greenhouse Effect 63 8.2 Relative Results of the Climate Change Scenarios 66 8.3 Tide plus Surge Climate Change Water Levels 75 9. Conclusions 77 10. References 78 Storm Tide Study 41/22526/412243 Final Report Addendum Table Index Table 1 Summary of Present Climate Storm Tide Estimates viii Table 2 Summary of Present and Future Climate “Tide plus Surge” Ocean Levels for the Gold Coast Seaway ix Table 3 Monitoring Stations for Tidal Data Collection Operated by Council during the period November 2004 to June 200513 Table 4 Australian tropical cyclone category scale 18 Table 5 Key Statistical TC Climatology Parameters for the Gold Coast Region 24 Table 6 Tidal Calibration - Quantitative Analysis of Model Performance 35 Table 7 Base Storm Parameter Set 36 Table 8 Additional Parameter Sensitivity Testing 37 Table 9 Tidal Planes at Gold Coast Seaway 38 Table 10 Summary of Tropical Cyclone Total Storm Tide Levels for Present Climate 49 Table 11 Tide gauge references for the extra-tropical simulations 57 Table 12 Summary of combined Tropical Cyclone and Extra-Tropical Total Storm Tide Levels for Present Climate 59 Table 13 Enhanced Greenhouse Scenarios for Tropical Cyclones65 Table 14 Estimated Increase in combined Tropical Cyclone and Extra-Tropical Total Storm Tide Levels under Climate Change Scenario in the Year 2060 67 Table 15 Estimated Increase in combined Tropical Cyclone and Extra-Tropical Total Storm Tide Levels under Climate Change Scenario in the Year 2100 71 Table 16 Summary of Present and Future Climate Tide plus Surge Ocean Levels for the Gold Coast Seaway 75 Table 17 Summary of Present and Future Climate Tide plus Surge Ocean Levels for the Coomera River South 76 Table 18 Summary of Present and Future Climate Tide plus Surge Ocean Levels for the Logan River Mouth 76 41/22526/412243 Storm Tide Study iii Final Report Addendum Figure Index Figure 1-1: Water level components of an extreme storm tide 3 Figure 1-2: Study Area 6 Figure 1-3: Modelling Domain 7 Figure 2-1: Overview of the Tropical Cyclone Methodology 10 Figure 2-2: Overview of the Extra-tropical and Remote Tropical Cyclone Methodology 12 Figure 3-1: Location of the Tweed Offshore Tidal Gauge 15 Figure 4-1: Severe tropical cyclone Hamish at Category 4 intensity paralleling the Queensland coast offshore Fraser Island in March 2009. (US Navy processed image) 17 Figure 4-2: Time history of the frequency of cyclone occurrence within 500 km of the Gold Coast 21 Figure 4-3: Time history of cyclone peak intensity within 500 km of the Gold Coast 21 Figure 4-4: Cyclone tracks capable of affecting the Gold Coast Region classified into top: offshore (21.7%), mid: parallel (47.8%) and bottom: onshore (30.4%). 22 Figure 4-5: Extreme value analysis of cyclone intensity within 500 km of Gold Coast 23 Figure 4-6: Example of an historical East Coast Low and some of the many ECL storm tracks affecting the Gold Coast region (after Harper 2001c) 26 Figure 4-7: Composite Datasets of East Coast Lows Affecting SE Queensland 28 Figure 5-1: Bathymetric Data Used in the Generation of the RHD Model 31 Figure 5-2: One-dimensional Representation of the Coomera River system in the RHD model 32 Figure 5-3: The Gold Coast Seaway tidal residual record. 40 Figure 5-4: The Seven Highest Residual Water Level Events from the Seaway Tidal Record. 41 Figure 5-5: The Variability in Residual Levels for TC Roger Across the Available Tide Gauges. 42 Figure 5-6: Overview of the Tidal Residual Re-sampling Process. 43 Figure 5-7: Sensitivity of the Seaway simulation return periods to the single large TC Roger event. 43 Figure 6-1: Verification of the generated HAT tidal plane at Gold Coast Seaway 46 Storm Tide Study 41/22526/412243 Final Report Addendum Figure 6-2: Statistical simulation model prediction of regional wind speeds 47 Figure 7-1: Estimated tropical cyclone total storm tide levels for selected sites. 52 Figure 7-2: Estimated tropical cyclone storm tide components for selected sites. 53 Figure 7-3: Estimated tropical cyclone storm tide components for selected sites. 54 Figure 7-4: Estimated tropical cyclone storm components for selected sites. 55 Figure 7-5: Estimated tropical cyclone storm tide components for selected sites. 56 Figure 7-6: Combining tropical and extra-tropical tide plus surge levels for present climate. 58 Figure 8-1: Projection of Global Average Sea Level Rise (after NCCOE 2004) 64 Figure 8-2: Assumed Possible Changes in the Intensity of Tropical Cyclones under Future Climate Change Projections within 500 km of the Gold Coast. 66 41/22526/412243 Storm Tide Study v Final Report Addendum Appendices A Technical Note on the Interpretation of Statistical Return Periods B Tropical Cyclone Dataset Summary C Calibration of the RHD Model D Calibration to Historical Tropical Cyclone Events E Location of Named Model Sites Storm Tide Study 41/22526/412243 Final Report Addendum 41/22526/412243 Storm Tide Study vii Final Report Addendum Executive Summary With its significant coastal margins, waterways and floodplains the populous Gold Coast region has a significant exposure to the impacts of ocean-related hazards (wind, waves, storm surge, beach erosion and associated rainfall and flooding). Under currently projected future climate scenarios it is likely that slowly rising sea levels and the possibility of increases in the intensity of tropical cyclones will increase this exposure. Accordingly Gold Coast City Council (GCCC) has sought to quantify these threats to enable responsible and sustainable planning decisions. Previous studies of storm tide risk at the Gold Coast have suggested that tropical cyclones do not presently play a major role due to the combined effects of the narrow continental shelf and the typically decreasing frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones south of Hervey Bay. Instead, other less intense but large scale and more frequent weather systems such as East Coast Lows and even remote tropical cyclones have been thought to dominate the storm tide risk. Through the application of a number of numerical, statistical and data analysis techniques, this study has confirmed these earlier assessments and increased confidence in the water level estimates that are summarised in Table 11, where tropical cyclone influences (bold italics) can be seen to be limited to longer ARI values relative to the other weather systems. Table 1 Summary of Present Climate Storm Tide Estimates Estuarine Sites Open Coast Gold Coast Coomera Logan River Surfers Paradise Seaway River South Mouth Tide plus Plus Wave ARI Tide plus Surge Only Surge Only Setup y m AHD m AHD m AHD m AHD m AHD 2 1.16 0.96 1.60 1.16 1.75 5 1.25 1.07 1.69 1.25 2.00 20 1.37 1.22 1.80 1.33 2.30 50 1.47 1.33 1.88 1.38 2.42 100 1.54 1.41 1.94 1.41 2.49 200 1.62 1.50 2.00 1.44 2.55 500 1.69 1.58 2.10 1.48 2.61 2000 1.78 1.68 2.36 1.52 2.71 10000 1.87 1.78 2.78 1.60 2.80 1 This report addendum updates previously determined GHD (2011) storm tide estimates for the Logan River Mouth site and minor changes to some other areas as a result of revised tidal plane estimates. Storm Tide Study 41/22526/412243 Final Report Addendum Table 1 presents a selection of results from the analyses that are described in more detail later in the report. The “Tide plus Surge Only” estimates are the ocean levels expected either in the protected estuarine waterways of The Broadwater and adjacent areas, or immediately offshore of the open coast beaches before wave breaking occurs. The “Plus Wave Setup” column shows the effect of the additional ocean level likely to be present at the beach face due to a process associated with wave breaking. The Surfers Paradise site in this case is deemed representative of all open coast beaches in the Gold Coast region, ignoring possible localised wave sheltering in some areas.