State-of-the-art coastal inundation models applied to the 2007 Norfolk storm

On the 9th November 2007, a storm surge in the North Sea caused severe flooding along isolat-ed parts of the Norfolk coast in the UK, in particular along the coastline of Walcott. The coastline at Walcott is orientated approximately northwest-southeast and is prone to attack from the North Sea. When wind is combined with a North Sea surge, the water level of the sea can increase by up to 2m above the normal sea level. Such conditions have caused disastrous flooding in the town, as in 1953, and more recently in Novem-ber 2007. Here we will compare the output from three different state-of-the-art coastal inundation models, namely TELEMAC-2D, LISFLOOD-FP and SWE-SPHysics, forced with time dependent wave overtopping discharges. It is shown that the inundation extent and the highest water mark are sensitive to the inflow repre-sentation and the choice of model.