How reliable are projections of future flood damage?

Bubeck, Philip; Moel, Hans de; Bouwer, Laurens M.; Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.

doi:10.5194/nhess-11-3293-2011

Cited by 87 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…It also has shown the effectiveness of several adaptation strategies to reduce risk. Bubeck et al (2011) conclude that these are the first steps to raise awareness, which is needed, in order to take effective action against the changing flood risk. For instance, the information can be used in the implementation of the Vietnamese government's national target programme to respond to climate change (DONRE, 2007).…”

Section: Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of the effectiveness of flood adaptation strategies for HCMC

Lasage

Veldkamp

Moel

et al. 2014

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Coastal cities are vulnerable to flooding, and flood risk to coastal cities will increase due to sea-level rise. Moreover, Asian cities in particular are subject to considerable population growth and associated urban developments, increasing this risk even more. Empirical data on vulnerability and the cost and benefits of flood risk reduction measures are therefore paramount for sustainable development of these cities. This paper presents an approach to explore the impacts of sea-level rise and socio-economic developments on flood risk for the flood-prone District 4 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and to develop and evaluate the effects of different adaptation strategies (new levees, dry-and wet proofing of buildings and elevating roads and buildings).A flood damage model was developed to simulate current and future flood risk using the results from a household survey to establish stage-damage curves for residential buildings. The model has been used to assess the effects of several participatory developed adaptation strategies to reduce flood risk, expressed in expected annual damage (EAD). Adaptation strategies were evaluated assuming combinations of both sea-level scenarios and land-use scenarios. Together with information on costs of these strategies, we calculated the benefit-cost ratio and net present value for the adaptation strategies until 2100, taking into account depreciation rates of 2.5 % and 5 %.The results of this modelling study indicate that the current flood risk in District 4 is USD 0.31 million per year, increasing up to USD 0.78 million per year in 2100. The net present value and benefit-cost ratios using a discount rate of 5 % range from USD −107 to −1.5 million, and from 0.086 to 0.796 for the different strategies. Using a discount rate of 2.5 % leads to an increase in both net present value and benefit-cost ratio. The adaptation strategies wet-proofing and dry-proofing generate the best results using these economic indicators. The information on different strategies will be used by the government of Ho Chi Minh City to determine a new flood protection strategy. Future research should focus on gathering empirical data right after a flood on the occurring damage, as this appears to be the most uncertain factor in the risk assessment.

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Section: Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of the effectiveness of flood adaptation strategies for HCMC

Lasage

Veldkamp

Moel

et al. 2014

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

Self Cite

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“…To our knowledge, only few studies have performed a flood loss model validation like in the work of Thieken et al (2008), Apel et al (2009), Wuensch et al (2009 or Jongman et al (2012). Others relied on model intercomparisons (e.g., Bubeck et al, 2011; but did not validate the model performance with real damage data. In the case of mountainous areas, flood loss estimation was only validated for torrent processes (e.g., Totschnig and Fuchs, 2013) but no study addressed larger mountain rivers so far.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptability and transferability of flood loss functions in residential areas

Cammerer

Thieken

Lammel

2013

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

130

144

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Abstract. Flood loss modeling is an important component within flood risk assessments. Traditionally, stage-damage functions are used for the estimation of direct monetary damage to buildings. Although it is known that such functions are governed by large uncertainties, they are commonly applied -even in different geographical regions -without further validation, mainly due to the lack of real damage data. Until now, little research has been done to investigate the applicability and transferability of such damage models to other regions. In this study, the last severe flood event in the Austrian Lech Valley in 2005 was simulated to test the performance of various damage functions from different geographical regions in Central Europe for the residential sector. In addition to common stage-damage curves, new functions were derived from empirical flood loss data collected in the aftermath of recent flood events in neighboring Germany. Furthermore, a multi-parameter flood loss model for the residential sector was adapted to the study area and also evaluated with official damage data. The analysis reveals that flood loss functions derived from related and more similar regions perform considerably better than those from more heterogeneous data sets of different regions and flood events. While former loss functions estimate the observed damage well, the latter overestimate the reported loss clearly. To illustrate the effect of model choice on the resulting uncertainty of damage estimates, the current flood risk for residential areas was calculated. In the case of extreme events like the 300 yr flood, for example, the range of losses to residential buildings between the highest and the lowest estimates amounts to a factor of 18, in contrast to properly validated models with a factor of 2.3. Even if the risk analysis is only performed for residential areas, our results reveal evidently that a carefree model transfer in other geographical regions might be critical. Therefore, we conclude that loss models should at least be selected or derived from related regions with similar flood and building characteristics, as far as no model validation is possible. To further increase the general reliability of flood loss assessment in the future, more loss data and more comprehensive loss data for model development and validation are needed.

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“…Also, a good understanding of perceptual and behavioural aspects, possibly leading to higher or lower exposure and vulnerabilities, is needed for a comprehensive and sustainable risk management (Ludy and Kon-dolf, 2012;Bubeck et al, 2012Bubeck et al, , 2013Kreibich et al, 2011Kreibich et al, , 2015Collenteur et al, 2014;Holub et al, 2011;Di Baldassarre et al, 2013). Further complexity is added by the (projected) changes in climate, exposure and vulnerability (Merz et al, 2014;Bubeck et al, 2011;Jongman et al, 2015). Besides, the shift to integrated flood-risk management has significantly enlarged the number of stakeholders that need to be involved and "managed" themselves.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%