Flood risk and climate change: global and regional perspectives

Abstract

A holistic perspective on changing rainfall-driven flood risk is provided for the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Economic losses from floods have greatly increased, principally driven by the expanding exposure of assets at risk. It has not been possible to attribute rain-generated peak streamflow trends to anthropogenic climate change over the past several decades. Projected increases in the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall, based on climate models, should contribute to increases in precipitation-generated local flooding (e.g. flash flooding and urban flooding). This article assesses the literature included in the IPCC SREX report and new literature published since, and includes an assessment of changes in flood risk in seven of the regions considered in the recent IPCC SREX report-Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Europe, North America, Oceania and Polar regions. Also considering newer publications, this article is consistent with the recent IPCC SREX assessment finding that the impacts of climate change on flood characteristics are highly sensitive to the detailed nature of those changes and that presently we have only low confidence1 in numerical projections of changes in flood magnitude or frequency resulting from climate change.

Description
Keywords
attribution, climate change, floods, global change, uncertainty, Climate change, Losses, Rain, Anthropogenic climate changes, attribution, Flash flooding, Flood characteristics, Flood magnitudes, Global change, Holistic perspectives, uncertainty, Floods, climate change, flood, global change, peak flow, polar region, precipitation (climatology), rainfall, risk assessment, streamflow, uncertainty analysis, Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe, North America, South America
Citation
Kundzewicz, Z. W., Kanae, S., Seneviratne, S. I., Handmer, J., Nicholls, N., Peduzzi, P., et al. (2014). Flood risk and climate change: global and regional perspectives. 59(1). https://doi.org//10.1080/02626667.2013.857411
License
Non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly attributed, cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way, is permitted