Abstract. There is a wide variety of flood damage models in use internationally, differing substantially in their approaches and economic estimates. Since these models are being used more and more as a basis for investment and planning decisions on an increasingly large scale, there is a need to reduce the uncertainties involved and develop a harmonised European approach, in particular with respect to the EU Flood Risks Directive. In this paper we present a qualitative and quantitative assessment of seven flood damage models, using two case studies of past flood events in Germany and the United Kingdom. The qualitative analysis shows that modelling approaches vary strongly, and that current methodologies for estimating infrastructural damage are not as well developed as methodologies for the estimation of damage to buildings. The quantitative results show that the model outcomes are very sensitive to uncertainty in both vulnerability (i.e. depth-damage functions) and exposure (i.e. asset values), whereby the first has a larger effect than the latter. We conclude that care needs to be taken when using aggregated land use data for flood risk assessment, and that it is essential to adjust asset values to the regional economic situation and property characteristics. We call for the development of a flexible but consistent European framework that applies best practice from existing models while providing room for including necessary regional adjustments.

There is a need for comprehensive, standardised and georeferenced information on floods for political and economic decision-making. Relevant, accurate and up-to-date data is an important aspect for resource distribution, mitigation programmes, disaster monitoring and assessment. Despite this, there is a lack of spatial and thematic accurate global data for floods. In Europe, historic data on flood losses and casualties are neither comprehensive nor standardised, thus making longterm analyses at continental level difficult. In this article, we present a map and catalogue of the major flood events of the last 56 years in the European Union (EU), Bulgaria and Romania. This study is an effort to alleviate the lack of homogeneous and georeferenced information on flood disasters for large periods in Europe. The objectives of this paper are to identify and classify the major flood disasters of the last 56 years in the EU; to map the major flood disasters at pan-European scale with the support of a potential flood hazard map and ancillary GIS datasets; and to give a picture of the current situation for major floods in the EU on the basis of past events and current trends.The Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) of the Centre of Research on Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels (CRED) and United States Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and NATHAN of Munich Re are two of the main public global databases for natural disasters. Information from EM-DAT and NATHAN on flood disasters producing more than 70 casualties and/or more than 0.005% of EU GDP in damage has been assessed for the production of the map and catalogue of major flood disasters in Europe.

Abstract. This paper presents an assessment of normalised flood losses in Europe for the period 1970-2006. Normalisation provides an estimate of the losses that would occur if the floods from the past take place under current societal conditions. Economic losses from floods are the result of both societal and climatological factors. Failing to adjust for time-variant socio-economic factors produces loss amounts that are not directly comparable over time, but rather show an ever-growing trend for purely socio-economic reasons. This study has used available information on flood losses from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) and the Natural Hazards Assessment Network (NATHAN).Following the conceptual approach of previous studies, we normalised flood losses by considering the effects of changes in population, wealth, and inflation at the country level. Furthermore, we removed inter-country price differences by adjusting the losses for purchasing power parities (PPP). We assessed normalised flood losses in 31 European countries. These include the member states of the European Union, Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.Results show no detectable sign of human-induced climate change in normalised flood losses in Europe. The observed increase in the original flood losses is mostly driven by societal factors.

No abstract

No abstract