{"id":8173,"date":"2026-03-31T14:07:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bgs.ac.uk\/groundwater\/flooding-and-drought\/flooding\/the-floods-and-droughts-research-infrastructure-fdri-project\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T15:22:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T14:22:01","slug":"the-floods-and-droughts-research-infrastructure-fdri-project","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bgs.ac.uk\/groundwater\/flooding-and-drought\/the-floods-and-droughts-research-infrastructure-fdri-project\/","title":{"rendered":"The Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI) project"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t\t<section class=\"hero-section hero-section-with-social\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"hero-info-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"col-12\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"hero-info\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1>The Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI) project<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"social-wrap social-wrap-inline-them\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"sea-background-f\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>Share this article<\/span><a target=\"_blank\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/www.bgs.ac.uk\/groundwater\/flooding-and-drought\/the-floods-and-droughts-research-infrastructure-fdri-project\/\"><span class=\"icon-facebook\"><span class=\"hidden\">Facebook<\/span><\/span><\/a><a target=\"_blank\"  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=The%20Floods%20and%20Droughts%20Research%20Infrastructure%20(FDRI)%20project&#038;url=https:\/\/www.bgs.ac.uk\/groundwater\/flooding-and-drought\/the-floods-and-droughts-research-infrastructure-fdri-project\/\"><span class=\"icon-twitter\"><span class=\"hidden\">Twitter<\/span><\/span><\/a><a   onclick=\"javascript:void( (function() {var e=document.createElement('script' );e.setAttribute('type','text\/javascript' );e.setAttribute('charset','UTF-8' );e.setAttribute('src','\/\/assets.pinterest.com\/js\/pinmarklet.js?r='+Math.random()*99999999);document.body.appendChild(e)})());\"  href=\"javascript:void(0);\"><span class=\"icon-pinterest\"><span class=\"hidden\">Pinterest<\/span><\/span><\/a><a target=\"_blank\"  href=\"https:\/\/wa.me?text=https:\/\/www.bgs.ac.uk\/groundwater\/flooding-and-drought\/the-floods-and-droughts-research-infrastructure-fdri-project\/\"><span class=\"icon-whatsapp\"><span class=\"hidden\">WhatsApp<\/span><\/span><\/a><a   href=\"mailto:?subject=The%20Floods%20and%20Droughts%20Research%20Infrastructure%20(FDRI)%20project&#038;body=%20(https:\/\/www.bgs.ac.uk\/groundwater\/flooding-and-drought\/the-floods-and-droughts-research-infrastructure-fdri-project\/)\"><span class=\"icon-mail\"><span class=\"hidden\">Email<\/span><\/span><\/a><a href=\"#\" data-copy=\"https:\/\/www.bgs.ac.uk\/groundwater\/flooding-and-drought\/the-floods-and-droughts-research-infrastructure-fdri-project\/\" class=\"copy-url-on-click\"><span class=\"icon-link\"><span class=\"hidden\">Copy Link<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-bgs-blocks-content-container content-section\"><div class=\"container\"><div class=\"row\"><div class=\"col-12\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Floods and droughts cause significant negative socio-economic, agricultural, and ecological impacts across the UK and are predicted to become more frequent and intense from rapid changes in climate, land use and water demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To better understand how environmental variables, including geology, affect the timing and duration of these hydrological extremes, BGS is working on the Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI) project, with lead partner UKCEH, as well as the University of Bristol, and Imperial College.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The vision for FDRI is to create a novel, sustainable, innovative, and digitally enabled research infrastructure to underpin the scientific evidence needed to support advances in the UK\u2019s resilience to floods and droughts. FDRI\u2019s key science questions, critical to floods and droughts, are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What are the key hydrological processes that generate or moderate floods and droughts?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Where, and how, does water flow and get stored? How does water quality change during floods and droughts?&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How will floods and droughts change in response to changing climate, land use and water resource management practices?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How can we improve the accuracy and lead times of flood and drought forecasts through new observations and innovative digital infrastructure?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New scientific observations using both existing and new sensors are needed to reduce uncertainties and develop understanding of the hydrological processes occurring at a range of scales, enabling predictive modelling that will increase the accuracy and lead times of flood and drought forecasts and thereby enhance resilience. Advancements in national scale modelling will enable an iterative process between modelling frameworks and observational networks to optimise the development of both long-term and campaign based observational design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Within the project, BGS is leading the design and deployment of hydrogeological infrastructure in the three focus catchments of FDRI. The BGS team is comprised of hydrogeologists, geologists and geophysicists to enable us to characterise the underlying geology and use this to support the infrastructure design. The FDRI Catchment Champion teams include a BGS hydrogeologist for each catchment, supporting the connection with catchment communities and ensuring that the groundwater infrastructure is fully integrated with other hydrological measurements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> More information on the project, including the three focus catchments, is available at the  <a href=\"https:\/\/fdri.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">FDRI website<\/a>, where you can also opt to sign up to receive project updates.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":6372,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"1","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8173","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - 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