Spatial modelling of extreme sea‐levels

The problem of estimating the probability of extreme sea‐levels along a coastline has received little attention. Most of the existing analyses are univariate approaches that are applied independently to data from individual sites. We present a spatial extension of the methods that integrates information from the data sites and exploits knowledge of the spatial variation of the tidal and surge constituents of the sea‐level along a coastline, to produce estimates at any coastal location. We illustrate the method by application to the UK east coast providing a set of design level estimates along the entire coastline. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.