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River flood risk and adaptation in Europe—assessment of the present status

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Abstract

Flood disasters have had a devastating effect worldwide over the past century, both in terms of human suffering and material losses. The study of these events and development of more effective adaptation and mitigation policies has become a priority, both in Europe and other parts of the globe. This paper detects and presents the spatial distribution of river flood risks in Europe. The methodology we developed involves an assessment of three key risk components: exposure, vulnerability and hazard. A topography-based flood hazard map of Europe, identifying low-lying areas adjacent to rivers, is presented and used to identify risk, together with land-use data and damage-stage relationship for different land uses. The study covers river flood risk for the entire European continent. This methodology can be used to determine the level of future risk, using the estimations on Hazard, Exposure and Vulnerability from specific climate and economic development models. Annual average flood damage is estimated for European regions, in absolute monetary terms and in % of regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The results highlight regions where the threat to the economy from river flood hazard is of major concern.

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Notes

  1. see, e.g. http://www.floodresiliencegroup.org

  2. www.adamproject.eu

  3. see http://etc-lusi.eionet.europa.eu/CLC2006/ for the state of the art.

  4. The aim of the study has been to produce flood damage functions relating water depth and economical damage for the assessment of direct damage as a consequence of floods. The flood damage functions have been produced for the CLC2000 classes, interpreted in land-use terms according to the LUCAS survey (EEA 2006). For each land-use class or their combinations, damage functions were produced.

    The water depth-damage functions comprise two damage indicators:

    • Damage factor relative to the maximum damage (i.e. between 0 and 1);

    • Absolute damage estimation (in Euros)

    The water depth-damage functions include a range of water depths from 0 to 6 m

    The approach is summarized as follows:

    • Literature study on flood damage data and damage functions. The study was Internet based and only European sources were considered;

    • Questionnaires were sent to authors to clarify documents found during the Internet search;

    • The collected country-specific quantitative data (comprising damage functions and maximum damage values) were recorded in Excel-spreadsheets;

    • Geographical characteristics of the countries were compared using GIS.

    • Economical characteristics of the countries were compared using statistical economic data from Eurostat and the World Bank;

    • A selection of land use classes was made based on their contribution to maximum damage. The selected classes comprise—on average for all EU countries—at least 80% of the total damage, in order to reduce the number of classes, but still predicting at least 80% of damage.

    • The collected maximum damage values were corrected using average national annual inflation;

    • The corrected maximum damage values were harmonized using statistical data from Eurostat and the World Bank;

    • The collected damage functions were reworked per land use class to one average function to be used for countries without collected functions;

    • Functions and maximum damage values were assigned to member states without collected data;

    • For all (mixed) land use classes of CLC it was identified based on literature (LUCAS survey) which unique land use classes contributed and how much;

    • Country specific functions and values were reworked to be used in relation to CLC datasets;

  5. The extension to the entire EU of the LISFLOOD-based hazard map (Feyen et al. 2008) was completed after the end of the work here presented, as related to the ADAM Project.

Abbreviations

AAD:

Annual Average Damage

CLC:

Corine Land Cover

DTM:

Digital Terrain Model

EU:

European Union

FHM:

Flood Hazard Map

GDP:

Gross Domestic Product

GIS:

Geographic Information Systems

GTOPO30:

Global Topography 30″ arc resolution

NUTS:

Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics

SRTM:

Shuttle Radar Topography Mission

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Author notes

  1. Nicola Lugeri

    Present address: Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), Rome, Italy

  2. Elisabetta Genovese

    Present address: Département des sciences géomatiques, Université Laval, Québec, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Commission of the European Communities, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy

    Nicola Lugeri & Elisabetta Genovese

  2. Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań, Poland

    Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz

  3. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany

    Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz

  4. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis - IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria

    Stefan Hochrainer

  5. Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland

    Maciej Radziejewski

  6. Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań, Poland

    Maciej Radziejewski

Authors
  1. Nicola Lugeri
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  2. Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz
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  3. Elisabetta Genovese
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  5. Maciej Radziejewski
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Correspondence to Nicola Lugeri.

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Guest Editors: Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz and Reinhard Mechler

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Lugeri, N., Kundzewicz, Z.W., Genovese, E. et al. River flood risk and adaptation in Europe—assessment of the present status. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 15, 621–639 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-009-9211-8

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