Extreme Value Analysis of the Coupled Coastal Hazard Prediction System (CCHaPS) Hindcast for Australia

Created 20/09/2025

Updated 20/09/2025

Extreme value analysis of CCHaPS, the Coupled Coastal Hazard Prediction System, which is a 2D hydrodynamic and wave model (Semi-implicit Cross-scale Hydroscience Integrated System Model and Wind Wave Model III, SCHISM-WWMIII), configured around the Australian coastline including the Great Barrier Reef, and extending out to deep offshore waters or neighbouring landmasses (https://data.csiro.au/collection/csiro:65669). The model simulates water levels due to astronomical tides, weather, waves and aspects of wave-flow interaction over multiple decades, allowing for full consideration of the dynamics of extreme sea levels and waves in the Australian region, at high spatial resolution from ~7 km offshore down to ~250 m at the coast, and ~100 m in major river mouths. The model is run on an unstructured (triangular) grid comprising over 1.4 million nodes, which extends overland up to a 12 m elevation contour, to enable modelling of inundation events and sea level rise. The CCHaPS hindcast covers the 40-year period 1981 to 2020. Extreme value analysis has been performed on 1) annual maximum{yr_max} significant wave heights {hs}, and 2) detrended annual maximum {yr_max-detrended} water levels {zos}, with the linear trend in mean water levels removed. Three types of extreme value distributions (EVDs) are fitted to the annual maxima: - two-parameter Gumbel - three-parameter Generalised Extreme Value (GEV) - four-parameter mixed Gumbel distribution (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08382-y) Datasets are provided for 1) the commonly used GEV {fgev}, and 2) the best of the three EVD {bestEVD} types (with positive shape parameters), selected using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Lower values of AIC indicate better models, in the sense that the model fit is better relative to the number of model parameters. Note: GEV fits with a negative shape parameter (i.e. bounded upper tail) can yield lower estimated extremes and are therefore not always preferred (e.g. Haigh et al., 2014; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-012-1652-1). The dataset comprises 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 63% Annual Exceedance Probabilities (AEPs) with {upper} and {lower} 95% confidence intervals, stored as netCDF data on an unstructured grid, compliant with CF, ACDD and UGRID metadata conventions. Additional processing is also applied to the confidence intervals. A notebook demonstrating how to interact with the data will be attached under Supporting Documentation, and also available via GitHub (see Related Links, LINK TBA). The netCDF files can be viewed in QGIS by importing them as a mesh through the Data Source Manager. (https://docs.qgis.org/3.40/en/docs/user_manual/working_with_mesh/mesh.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com) The data is also stored on CSIRO infrastructure in the {ev-acs-wp3-cchaps} volume, and at NCI in /g/data/ia39/WP3/release/CCHaPS. A manuscript describing this dataset is in preparation and will be linked to this metadata record in due course.

Files and APIs

Additional Info

Field Value
Title Extreme Value Analysis of the Coupled Coastal Hazard Prediction System (CCHaPS) Hindcast for Australia
Language English
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/9b2cc58f-226d-5277-b38d-7c507f13b0f5
Contact Point
CSIRO Data Access Portal
CSIROEnquiries@csiro.au
Reference Period 01/01/2000
Geospatial Coverage Australia
Data Portal CSIRO DAP

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on CSIRO DAP "Extreme Value Analysis of the Coupled Coastal Hazard Prediction System (CCHaPS) Hindcast for Australia". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://data.csiro.au/collection/csiro:65867