Abstract
Floods pose one of the largest risks to natural hazards globally. In
2012, the global damage from floods was estimated to be about € 22
billion. For the first half of 2013, the global damage was estimated to
be already € 35 billion, being about 47% of the overall losses due
to natural hazards. Almost half of this amount was due to river flooding
such as the devastating floods in East Germany in May-June 2013. Besides
possible increases in frequency and severity of flood events, floods are
becoming more damaging due to increases in population and increases in
economic utilization of flood prone areas. It is therefore crucial to
understand the nature and causes of flood risks and possible changes
therein due to climate and socio-economic change. Improved understanding
will support adaptation plans and investments, either in new economic
activities or in flood protection. On this poster, we show a global
scale map of current river flood risk and flood risk changes in the
future. The map shows how economic damages and the number of
flood-affected people due to river floods will change under several
scenarios of combined climate and socio-economic change. Across a number
of large river basins, we distinguish the contribution to change in risk
by climate change (resulting in an increase in flood hazard) and by
socio-economic change (resulting in more impacts of flooding). We
compute these risks using a validated model cascade consisting of
hydrological flood models and impact models forced by long time series
of current and future climate (CMIP5) and socio-economic scenarios in
periods around 2030 and 2080. We discuss per basin what the possible
implications of the scenarios are.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 11673 |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 |
