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Climate signals in river flood damages emerge under sound regional disaggregation

Author

Listed:
  • Inga J. Sauer

    (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
    ETH Zurich)

  • Ronja Reese

    (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)

  • Christian Otto

    (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)

  • Tobias Geiger

    (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
    Climate and Environment Consultancy)

  • Sven N. Willner

    (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)

  • Benoit P. Guillod

    (ETH Zurich
    ETH Zurich)

  • David N. Bresch

    (ETH Zurich
    Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss)

  • Katja Frieler

    (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)

Abstract

Climate change affects precipitation patterns. Here, we investigate whether its signals are already detectable in reported river flood damages. We develop an empirical model to reconstruct observed damages and quantify the contributions of climate and socio-economic drivers to observed trends. We show that, on the level of nine world regions, trends in damages are dominated by increasing exposure and modulated by changes in vulnerability, while climate-induced trends are comparably small and mostly statistically insignificant, with the exception of South & Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Asia. However, when disaggregating the world regions into subregions based on river-basins with homogenous historical discharge trends, climate contributions to damages become statistically significant globally, in Asia and Latin America. In most regions, we find monotonous climate-induced damage trends but more years of observations would be needed to distinguish between the impacts of anthropogenic climate forcing and multidecadal oscillations.

Suggested Citation

  • Inga J. Sauer & Ronja Reese & Christian Otto & Tobias Geiger & Sven N. Willner & Benoit P. Guillod & David N. Bresch & Katja Frieler, 2021. "Climate signals in river flood damages emerge under sound regional disaggregation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-22153-9
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22153-9
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    Cited by:

    1. Mühlhofer, Evelyn & Koks, Elco E. & Kropf, Chahan M. & Sansavini, Giovanni & Bresch, David N., 2023. "A generalized natural hazard risk modelling framework for infrastructure failure cascades," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    2. Pui Man Kam & Fabio Ciccone & Chahan M. Kropf & Lukas Riedel & Christopher Fairless & David N. Bresch, 2024. "Impact-based forecasting of tropical cyclone-related human displacement to support anticipatory action," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Julien Boulange & Yukiko Hirabayashi & Masahiro Tanoue & Toshinori Yamada, 2023. "Quantitative evaluation of flood damage methodologies under a portfolio of adaptation scenarios," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 118(3), pages 1855-1879, September.
    4. Samuel Lüthi & Christopher Fairless & Erich M. Fischer & Noah Scovronick & Armstrong & Micheline De Sousa Zanotti Stagliorio Coelho & Yue Leon Guo & Yuming Guo & Yasushi Honda & Veronika Huber & Jan K, 2023. "Rapid increase in the risk of heat-related mortality," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.

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