Ensemble flood risk assessment in Europe under high end climate scenarios

Abstract

Keywords:EURO-CORDEX climate projections RCP 8.5 Shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) Flood risk Potential flood damage A B S T R A C T At the current rate of global warming, the target of limiting it within 2 degrees by the end of the century seems more and more unrealistic. Policymakers, businesses and organizations leading international negotiations urge the scientific community to provide realistic and accurate assessments of the possible consequences of so called "high end" climate scenarios.This study illustrates a novel procedure to assess the future flood risk in Europe under high levels of warming. It combines ensemble projections of extreme streamflow for the current century based on EURO-CORDEX RCP 8.5 climate scenarios with recent advances in European flood hazard mapping. Further novelties include a threshold-based evaluation of extreme event magnitude and frequency, an alternative method to removing bias in climate projections, the latest pan-European exposure maps, and an improved flood vulnerability estimation.Estimates of population affected and direct flood damages indicate that by the end of the century the socio-economic impact of river floods in Europe is projected to increase by an average 220% due to climate change only. When coherent socio-economic development pathways are included in the assessment, central estimates of population annually affected by floods range between 500,000 and 640,000 in 2050, and between 540,000 and 950,000 in 2080, as compared to 216,000 in the current climate. A larger range is foreseen in the annual flood damage, currently of 5.3 Bs, which is projected to rise at 20-40 Bs in 2050 and 30-100 Bs in 2080, depending on the future economic growth. 2015 Z. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Are European decision-makers preparing for high-end climate change?

“…Such scenarios include climate and the underlying socio-economic storylines both as the drivers of emissions and as narratives capturing a range of societal challenges. These high-end trajectories will potentially lead to severe levels of climate change impacts across multiple sectors and systems, such as those described for flood risk (Alfieri et al 2015), sea-level rise (Golledge et al 2015), water scarcity (Schewe et al 2014), heat stress (Sherwood and Huber 2010), among others .…”

Do current European lake monitoring programmes reliably estimate phytoplankton community changes?

“…In Austria, the frequency of meteorological droughts has increased since 1950 (European Environment Agency, 2017), and an increase in summer surface water temperature of at least 2°C by 2050 has been predicted for 15 Austrian lakes (Dokulil, 2014). Austria is also projected to experience the highest increase in flood risk among European countries (Alfieri et al, 2015). Consequently, lakes are at risk of climate-induced eutrophication (Moss, 2008), as rising air temperature increases the external and internal nutrient loading by accelerating the rate of mineralisation in catchment soils and in lakes (Malmaeus et al, 2006).…”

To what extent are land resource managers preparing for high-end climate change in Scotland?

“…The reality of the worst is that the world is currently headed for an average increase in temperature of 4°C and beyond (Gasser et al 2015;Stafford Smith et al 2011). The current high-end trajectory would lead to severe climate change impacts, as reported for sea-level rise (Golledge et al 2015), flood risk (Alfieri et al 2015) and water scarcity (Schewe et al 2014) among others. Impacts and adaptation to high-end climate change (HECC) are currently a key focus of European Union (EU) project funding, with three complementary projects that focus on regional and local impacts and adaptation across a range of land, water and coastal ecosystems (High-end climate research EU website 2016).…”