Changes in flood damage with global warming on the eastern coast of Spain

Abstract

Abstract. Flooding is one of the main natural hazards in the world and causes huge economic and human impacts. Assessing the flood damage in the Mediterranean region is of great importance, especially because of its large vulnerability to climate change. Most past floods affecting the region were caused by intense precipitation events; thus the analysis of the links between precipitation and flood damage is crucial. The main objective of this paper is to estimate changes in the probability of damaging flood events with global warming of 1.5, 2 and 3 ∘C above pre-industrial levels and taking into account different socioeconomic scenarios in two western Mediterranean regions, namely Catalonia and the Valencian Community. To do this, we analyse the relationship between heavy precipitation and flood-damage estimates from insurance datasets in those two regions. We consider an ensemble of seven regional climate model (RCM) simulations spanning the period 1976–2100 to evaluate precipitation changes and to drive a logistic model that links precipitation and flood-damage estimates, thus deriving statistics under present and future climates. Furthermore, we incorporate population projections based on five different socioeconomic scenarios. The results show a general increase in the probability of a damaging event for most of the cases and in both regions of study, with larger increments when higher warming is considered. Moreover, this increase is higher when both climate and population change are included. When population is considered, all the periods and models show a clearly higher increase in the probability of damaging events, which is statistically significant for most of the cases. Our findings highlight the need for limiting global warming as much as possible as well as the importance of including variables that consider change in both climate and socioeconomic conditions in the analysis of flood damage.

The Lightning Jump Algorithm for Nowcasting Convective Rainfall in Catalonia

“…The objective of the present analysis was understanding the behavior of the LJ algorithm in front of heavy rainfall, focusing on the particular case of Catalonia. This region suffers many episodes of floods, similar to other areas of the Mediterranean Basin [60][61][62]. Most of the cases are flash-flood type, which is characterized by heavy rainfall in a short period (less than 3 h) and a high amount of convective rain [35,63].…”

Coping with flood risk adaptation in Mediterranean countries: evidences, uncertainties, strategies and limits

“…When the analysis is extended to the entire region with the aim to assess flood impacts under future scenarios, it is better to work with a 24h-interval (Cortès et al, 2018). Cortès et al (2019) analysed the relationships between flood damage, precipitation and exposure, modelling them by means of a Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM). This type of models permits to deal with the characteristics of the Mediterranean region, which has a complex morphology of mountain chains and strong land-sea contrasts, a dense and growing human population and various environmental pressures.…”

When Macro Critical Climate Risk Comes True. Environmental Destruction and House Prices in Mar Menor, Spain

“…According to this report, the analysis of 50 years of time series data shows that the chlorophyll levels in the lagoon stood within a range characteristic of a low nutrient system until the rst phytoplankton proliferation episode in the summer of 2015.Additionally, HAB episodes in Mar Menor have been frequently associated with oods or extreme temperatures in the region (9 episodes of ooding events with relevant or catastrophic damage have been documented in the period 2000-2022, 5 in the last 6 years, versus 5 in the previous 50 years) 12 . This frequency of extreme episodes is widely documented to be related with climate change, all over the World 13,14 and specially on the Mediterranean coast of Spain 15,16,17 The increasing extreme rainfall and ooding has been reported to play an important role in the dynamic change of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrient cycles, promoting eutrophication and the expansion of algal blooms. 18,19 Then, this paper can be seen as an evaluation of what happens when Macro Critical Climate Risk, as de ned by the International Monetary Fund (a profound threat to growth and prosperity) 20 becomes a reality affecting a weak ecosystem.…”