Projecting Flood Risk Dynamics for Effective Long-Term Adaptation

TY - JOUR

T1 - Projecting Flood Risk Dynamics for Effective Long-Term Adaptation

AU - Schoppa, Lukas

AU - Barendrecht, Marlies H.

AU - Paprotny, Dominik

AU - Sairam, Nivedita

AU - Sieg, Tobias

AU - Kreibich, Heidi

N1 - Funding Information: We thank Francesco Dottori and Lorenzo Mentaschi for providing us with the data set on projected flood discharge change from the Joint Research Centre and Max Steinhausen for the pre-processing of the data. Further, we thank Frank Frenzel from the Environmental Agency of Dresden and Wilfried Wiechmann from the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) for sharing the flood inundation maps and water level time series for Dresden with us. This work was conducted within the framework of the Research Training Group “Natural Hazards and Risks in a Changing World” (NatRiskChange; grant number: GRK 2043) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Funding Information: We thank Francesco Dottori and Lorenzo Mentaschi for providing us with the data set on projected flood discharge change from the Joint Research Centre and Max Steinhausen for the pre‐processing of the data. Further, we thank Frank Frenzel from the Environmental Agency of Dresden and Wilfried Wiechmann from the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) for sharing the flood inundation maps and water level time series for Dresden with us. This work was conducted within the framework of the Research Training Group “Natural Hazards and Risks in a Changing World” (NatRiskChange; grant number: GRK 2043) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Authors. Earth's Future published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Geophysical Union.

PY - 2024/3/13

Y1 - 2024/3/13

N2 - Flood losses have steadily increased in the past and are expected to grow even further owing to climate and socioeconomic change. The reduction of flood vulnerability, for example, through adaptation, plays a key role in the mitigation of future flood risk. However, lacking knowledge about vulnerability dynamics, which arise from the interaction between floods and the ensuing response by society, limits the scope of current risk projections. We present a socio-hydrological method for flood risk assessment that simulates the interaction between society and flooding continuously, including changes in vulnerability through collective (structural) and private (non structural) measures. Our probabilistic approach quantifies uncertainties and exploits empirical data to chart risk dynamics including how society copes with flooding. In a case study for the commercial sector in Dresden, Germany, we show that increased adaptation is necessary to counteract the expected four-fold growth in flood risk due to transient hydroclimatic and socioeconomic boundary conditions. We further use our holistic approach to identify solutions for effective long-term adaptation, demonstrating that integrated adaptation strategies (i.e., combined structural and non structural measures) can reduce the average risk by up to 60% at the study site. Ultimately, our case study highlights the benefit of the model for robust flood risk assessment as it can capture unintended, adverse feedbacks of adaptation measures such as the levee effect. Consequently, our socio-hydrological method contributes to a more systemic and reliable flood risk assessment that can inform adaptation planning by exploring the possible system evolutions comprehensively including unlikely futures.

AB - Flood losses have steadily increased in the past and are expected to grow even further owing to climate and socioeconomic change. The reduction of flood vulnerability, for example, through adaptation, plays a key role in the mitigation of future flood risk. However, lacking knowledge about vulnerability dynamics, which arise from the interaction between floods and the ensuing response by society, limits the scope of current risk projections. We present a socio-hydrological method for flood risk assessment that simulates the interaction between society and flooding continuously, including changes in vulnerability through collective (structural) and private (non structural) measures. Our probabilistic approach quantifies uncertainties and exploits empirical data to chart risk dynamics including how society copes with flooding. In a case study for the commercial sector in Dresden, Germany, we show that increased adaptation is necessary to counteract the expected four-fold growth in flood risk due to transient hydroclimatic and socioeconomic boundary conditions. We further use our holistic approach to identify solutions for effective long-term adaptation, demonstrating that integrated adaptation strategies (i.e., combined structural and non structural measures) can reduce the average risk by up to 60% at the study site. Ultimately, our case study highlights the benefit of the model for robust flood risk assessment as it can capture unintended, adverse feedbacks of adaptation measures such as the levee effect. Consequently, our socio-hydrological method contributes to a more systemic and reliable flood risk assessment that can inform adaptation planning by exploring the possible system evolutions comprehensively including unlikely futures.

KW - adaptation

KW - dynamics

KW - flood

KW - projection

KW - risk

KW - vulnerability

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85187908955

U2 - 10.1029/2022EF003258

DO - 10.1029/2022EF003258

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85187908955

SN - 2328-4277

VL - 12

JO - Earth's Future

JF - Earth's Future

IS - 3

M1 - e2022EF003258

ER -