Flashflood-related mortality in southern France: first results from a new database

Abstract

Abstract. Over the last 25 years, flash floods in the South of France have killed almost 250 people. The protection of prone populations is a priority for the French government. It is also a goal of the 2007 European flood directive. However, no accurate database exists gathering the fatalities due to floods in France. Fatalities are supposed to be rare and hazardous, mainly due to individual behaviour. A Ph. D. work has initiated the building of a database gathering a detailed analysis of the circumstances of death and the profiles of the deceased DJH JHQGHU« 7KH VWXG\ DUHD FRYHUV the French Mediterranean departments prone to flash floods over the period 1988-2015. This presentation details the main features of the sample, 244 fatalities collected through newspapers completed with field surveys near police services and municipalities. The sample is broken down between huge events that account for two thirds of the IDWDOLWLHV DQG ³VPDOO´ HYHQWV 4 % of the fatalities). Deaths at home account for 35 % of the total number of fatalities, mainly during huge events. 30 % of fatalities are related to vehicles. The last part of the work explains the relations between fatalities and prevention and how better knowledge of flood-related deaths can help to improve flood prevention. The given example shows the relationship between flood forecasting and fatalities. Half of the deaths took place in a small watershed (< 150 km 2 ). It emphasizes the need for the dissemination of a complementary system of flash flood forecast based on forecasted rainfall depth and adapted to small watersheds.

Full‐scale testing of stability curves for vehicles in flood waters

“…A recent analysis of global statistics of flood impacts by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (UNISDR, ) estimated that in the period from 1995 to 2005, 606,000 lives were lost and 4.1 billion people were injured, left homeless or in need of emergency assistance as a result of weather‐related disasters. Country‐specific between 25 and 68% of the total number of flood fatalities occurs in vehicles that become unstable in floodwaters (Diakakis & Deligiannakis, ; Haynes et al, ; Jonkman & Vrijling, ; Kellar & Schmidlin, ; Pereira, Diakakis, Deligiannakis, & Zezere, ; Špitalar et al, ; Vinet, Boissier, & Saint‐Martin, ). Analysis of flood rescue data shows that occupied vehicles that become unstable due to the force of floodwaters are vulnerable to being washed off roadways and bridges into even deeper, more dangerous flows (Gissing, Opper, & van Leeuwen, ).…”

Comparing flood mortality in Portugal and Greece (Western and Eastern Mediterranean)

“…The HYMEX project database gathered flood data, including the number of casualties and circumstances related with the deaths, from four representative regions of the NW sector of the Mediterranean: Catalonia, Balearic Islands (Spain); Calabria (Italy); and Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées and Provence-Alpes-Côte d′Azur (France) [28]. In addition, flash flood mortality in southern France was already explored [35,36] in the period 1988-2013 by analysing the demographics of victims (i.e. age, gender), the circumstances of fatal incidents, risk behaviours, as well as seasonal and spatial distribution of fatalities.…”

DamaGIS: a multisource geodatabase for collection of flood-related damage data

“…The choice was made so as to focus only on material damage. However, information on flood-related fatalities is included in another database called the Vict-In database, which has gathered the circumstances of death and the profiles of the flood victims in the French Mediterranean departments since 1988 Vinet et al, 2016). Both Vict-In and DamaGIS share the same EVENT feature class.…”