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Aidan Burton
Senior Research Associate
Civil Engineering and Geosciences
Newcastle University
Phone: +44 (0) 191 222 8836
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| Summary of interests |
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My research concerns the development of stochastic space-time rainfall models to support the analysis of hydrological systems under present day and future climatic scenarios.
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For rainfall modelling applications the Rainsim model (Burton et al., 2008) can simulate time series for a single raingauge or spatial-temporal fields of rainfall at either daily or hourly time steps for European climates. This model may be used to downscale General Circulation Model scenarios to scales of relevance to hydrological systems of up to 10000km2. This allows comparitive hydrological studies of rainfall impacts for present day and for future climates. This capability has led to a range of future climate assessments including modelling studies of flash-flood risk, urban flooding, droughts and rainfall-triggered landsliding. This rainfall model is being actively extended, refined and applied in support of a range of recent and ongoing research projects.
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The Rainsim model in concert with a weather generator can produce consistent rainfall and weather time series for present day and for future climate scenarios. This potential has been realized in the EARWIG system (Kilsby et al., 2007) which provides a user friendly interface to allow rapid preparation of climatic scenarios for UK catchments. This process is considerably eased through the utilization of databases of river catchments, meterological observations and UKCIP02 future climate projections.
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The latest UK climate projections (UKCIP09) also incorporate a version of the Rainsim model with a weather generator (Jones et al., 2009). Here the EARWIG approach is extended and updated by using a range of more recent climate model projections, by representing future uncertainty as an ensemble of equal-liklihood possibilities, by providing a wider range of future scenario time slices and by increasing the availability of these projections through the use of a web interface.
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Modelling the temporal development of
climate-sensitive hydrological systems may require
transient-climate simulations of rainfall. A new
downscaling methology has therefore been developed
(Burton et al., 2010a) so
that the Rainsim model can generate climatically
non-stationary simulations. For a application to
the Brevilles spring (Seine, France) transient
single-site rainfall model parameterizations were
fitted and used to simulate 100 80-year
transient-cimate timeseries corresponding to the
projections of 13 RCM's.
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Rainfall occurring in mountainous areas can form an
important component of available water resources.
A new variant of the Rainsim model therefore
focuses on the particular challenges associated
with modelling rainfall in mountains (Burton el al., 2010b) . In
particular mountains can experience both increased
amounts and occurrence of rainfall compared with
nearby lower lying areas. This new model is shown
to be able to provide spatial-temporal simulations
of spatially-varying rainfall occurrence and
amounts for a mountainous catchment in the
Pyrenees.
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| Publications |
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Bathurst, J.C., Burton, A. and Ward, T.J. (1997) Debris flow runout and landslide delivery model tests Proc. Am. Soc. Civ. Engrs., J. Hydraul. Engrg. 123 (4).
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Burton, A. and Bathurst J.C. (1998) Physically based modelling of shallow landslide sediment yield at a catchment scale, Environmental Geology, 35 (2-3), pp 89-99
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Burton, A., Arkell, T.J. and Bathurst J.C. (1998) Field variability of landslide model parameters, Environmental Geology, 35 (2-3), pp100-114
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Kilsby C.G., Ewen J., Sloan W.T., Burton A, Fallows C.S. and O'Connell P.E., (1999), The UP modelling system for large scale hydrology: simulation of the Arkansas Red River basin, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Vol 3, Iss 1, pp 137-149
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Bathurst, J.C., Moretti, G., El-Hames, A., Moaven-Hashemi, A. and Burton, A. 2005, Scenario modelling of basin-scale, shallow landslide sediment yield, Valsassina, Italian Southern Alps, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 5, 189-202
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Fowler, H.J., Kilsby, C.G., O'Connell, P.E., and Burton, A. 2005. A weather-type conditioned multi-site stochastic rainfall model for the generation of scenarios of climatic variability and change. Journal of Hydrology, 308(1-4), 50-66.
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Bathurst JC; Burton A; Clarke BG; Gallart F (2006) Application of the SHETRAN basin-scale, landslide sediment yield model to the Llobregat basin, Spanish Pyrenees, Hydrol. Process., 20, 3119–3138, DOI: 10.1002/hyp.6151
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Ewen J; O'Donnell G; Burton A; O'Connell P.E. (2006) Errors and uncertainty in physically-based rainfall-runoff modelling of catchment change effects, J. Hydrol., 330 (3-4), 641-650.
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Kilsby, C.G., Jones, P.D., Burton, A., Ford, A.C., Fowler, H.J., Harpham, C., James, P., Smith, A. and Wilby, R.L. 2007. A daily weather generator for use in climate change studies. Environmental Modelling and Software, 22, 1705-1719.
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Nolan, B.T., Dubus, I.G., Surdyk, N., Fowler, H.J., Burton, A., Hollis, J.M., Reichenberger, S. and Jarvis, N.J. (2008) Identification of key climatic factors regulating the transport of pesticides in leaching and to tile drains, Pest Management Science, 64(9), 933-944, doi:10.1002/ps.1587.
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Burton, A., Kilsby, C.G., Fowler, H.J., Cowpertwait, P.S.P., O'Connell, P.E. (2008) RainSim: A spatial temporal stochastic rainfall modelling system, Environmental Modelling & Software, 23 (12), 1356-1369, doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2008.04.003.
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Jones, P.D., Kilsby, C.G., Harpham, C., Glenis, V., and Burton, A., 2009. UK Climate Projections science report: Projections of future daily climate for the UK from the Weather Generator. University of Newcastle, UK. ISBN 978-1-906360-06-1
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Burton, A., Fowler, H.J., Blenkinsop, S., and Kilsby, C.G, (2010)
Downscaling transient climate change using a Neyman-Scott Rectangular Pulses stochastic rainfall model
, Journal of Hydrology, 381 (1-2) 18-32,
doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.10.031
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Burton, A., Fowler, H.J., Kilsby, C.G., O'Connell, P.E., (2010)
A stochastic model for the spatial-temporal simulation of non-homogeneous rainfall occurrence and amounts,
Water Resources Research, 46, W11501,
doi: 10.1029/2009WR008884
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