The big flood: North Sea storm surge

In the 50 years since the catastrophic southern North Sea storm surge of 31 January-1 February 1953, there have been technological advances in the engineering of flood protection, increased understanding of physical processes in shallow seas and estuaries, and developments in the mathematical statistics of extreme events. This introductory paper reviews how the scientific understanding of surge events, their impacts and the human responses to them is evolving on many fronts, often across disciplinary boundaries. The question of how the long-term nature of the problem itself will be influenced by possible climate, land use and policy changes is addressed, along with their associated uncertainties.