1. The challenge of unprecedented floods and droughts in risk management.
- Author
-
Kreibich H, Van Loon AF, Schröter K, Ward PJ, Mazzoleni M, Sairam N, Abeshu GW, Agafonova S, AghaKouchak A, Aksoy H, Alvarez-Garreton C, Aznar B, Balkhi L, Barendrecht MH, Biancamaria S, Bos-Burgering L, Bradley C, Budiyono Y, Buytaert W, Capewell L, Carlson H, Cavus Y, Couasnon A, Coxon G, Daliakopoulos I, de Ruiter MC, Delus C, Erfurt M, Esposito G, François D, Frappart F, Freer J, Frolova N, Gain AK, Grillakis M, Grima JO, Guzmán DA, Huning LS, Ionita M, Kharlamov M, Khoi DN, Kieboom N, Kireeva M, Koutroulis A, Lavado-Casimiro W, Li HY, LLasat MC, Macdonald D, Mård J, Mathew-Richards H, McKenzie A, Mejia A, Mendiondo EM, Mens M, Mobini S, Mohor GS, Nagavciuc V, Ngo-Duc T, Thao Nguyen Huynh T, Nhi PTT, Petrucci O, Nguyen HQ, Quintana-Seguí P, Razavi S, Ridolfi E, Riegel J, Sadik MS, Savelli E, Sazonov A, Sharma S, Sörensen J, Arguello Souza FA, Stahl K, Steinhausen M, Stoelzle M, Szalińska W, Tang Q, Tian F, Tokarczyk T, Tovar C, Tran TVT, Van Huijgevoort MHJ, van Vliet MTH, Vorogushyn S, Wagener T, Wang Y, Wendt DE, Wickham E, Yang L, Zambrano-Bigiarini M, Blöschl G, and Di Baldassarre G
- Subjects
- Climate Change statistics & numerical data, Datasets as Topic, Humans, Hydrology, Internationality, Droughts prevention & control, Droughts statistics & numerical data, Extreme Weather, Floods prevention & control, Floods statistics & numerical data, Risk Management methods, Risk Management statistics & numerical data, Risk Management trends
- Abstract
Risk management has reduced vulnerability to floods and droughts globally
1,2 , yet their impacts are still increasing3 . An improved understanding of the causes of changing impacts is therefore needed, but has been hampered by a lack of empirical data4,5 . On the basis of a global dataset of 45 pairs of events that occurred within the same area, we show that risk management generally reduces the impacts of floods and droughts but faces difficulties in reducing the impacts of unprecedented events of a magnitude not previously experienced. If the second event was much more hazardous than the first, its impact was almost always higher. This is because management was not designed to deal with such extreme events: for example, they exceeded the design levels of levees and reservoirs. In two success stories, the impact of the second, more hazardous, event was lower, as a result of improved risk management governance and high investment in integrated management. The observed difficulty of managing unprecedented events is alarming, given that more extreme hydrological events are projected owing to climate change3 ., (© 2022. The Author(s).)- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF