Application of spatial statistics as a screening tool for sustainable flood retention basin management

In the context of climate change and the EU flood directive, this paper analyses and explores sustainable flood retention basins (SFRB) as adaptive structures contributing to water resources management and flood risk control. A dataset of 371 potential SFRB (including many operating reservoirs) characterized by 40 variables have been surveyed across central Scotland. However, the spatial properties of these SFRB, such as water storage (which relates to flooding depth) in different regions, are ambiguous. This paper uses geostatistics on the Scottish dataset. Spatial analysis showed that ordinary kriging, which is a spatial interpolation method, could be successfully applied to estimate numerical values for all key flood control variables everywhere in the study area. Moreover, the probability that certain threshold values relevant to flood control managers were exceeded can also be calculated by using disjunctive kriging. The findings provide an effective screening tool in assessing flood control using SFRB.