Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Climate change impacts on environmental systems
Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) ( 55 ), data reported by
EU Member States under the EU Floods Directive and
an additional country consultation in all EEA member
and cooperating countries (ETC/ICM, 2015). Less
extreme events or events with small spatial extent are
not included, but the combination of data sources still
leads to a large improvement over an overview based
on global data sources only. Furthermore, selection of
'larger' floods only (here with severity class 'very high')
is expected to reduce the reporting bias (Kundzewicz
et al., 2013). For comparison, the NatCatSERVICE
database in total contains more than 1 200 flood events
that have happened since 1990, which, on average, is
over 50 per year.
Losses from flooding in Europe have increased
substantially since the 1970s (Barredo, 2009). In recent
years, some flood events have been so much stronger
than previous events that they have led to significant
changes in flood risk estimation methods for that region,
e.g. in the United Kingdom (Miller et al., 2013; Schaller
et al., 2016). The trend for increasing losses from river
floods is primarily attributable to socio-economic factors,
such as increasing wealth located in flood zones, but
increases in heavy precipitation in parts of Europe
may also play a role (see Section 3.2.5 and Section 5.1).
Robust attribution is not yet possible because of
insufficient data (Barredo, 2009; Feyen et al., 2012). In
terms of regional GDP, flood risks are highest in large
parts of eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Austria and the
United Kingdom and parts of France and Italy (Lugeri
et al., 2010). A shift from a purely technically oriented
flood defense toward a more integrated flood risk
management system that also considers nonstructural
measures to minimize adverse effects of flooding has led
to more effective flood management and to a reduction
of damage caused by the 2013 floods in Germany,
compared to the 2002 floods (Thieken et al., 2016).
Figure 4.12 Number of flood phenomena with 'very high' severity, 1980–2010
Number of flood phenomena in severity class 'very high'
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Note:
1980
1981
1982
A flood phenomenon with 'very high' severity means that:
• the frequency has been assessed as 'very rare' (typically with return periods of at least 100 years); or
• the degree of total damage has been reported as 'high' or 'very high'; or
• the severity class in the Dartmouth Flood Observatory database is equal to 1.5 or 2; or
• there have been fatalities reported; or
• more than nine individual 'flood events' have been reported for one 'flood phenomenon'.
Source: ETC/ICM, 2015; EEA, 2016a.
( 55 ) http://www.emdat.be, maintained by CRED.
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report
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