The challenge of unprecedented floods and droughts in risk management
Aug 3, 2022·,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,·
2 min read
Heidi Kreibich
Anne F. Van Loon
Kai Schröter
Philip J. Ward
Maurizio Mazzoleni
Nivedita Sairam
Guta Wakbulcho Abeshu
Svetlana Agafonova
Amir AghaKouchak
Hafzullah Aksoy
Camila Alvarez-Garreton
Blanca Aznar
Laila Balkhi
Marlies H. Barendrecht
Sylvain Biancamaria
Liduin Bos-Burgering
Chris Bradley
Yus Budiyono
Wouter Buytaert
Lucinda Capewell
Hayley Carlson
Yonca Cavus
Anaïs Couasnon
Gemma Coxon
Ioannis Daliakopoulos
Marleen C. de Ruiter
Claire Delus
Mathilde Erfurt
Giuseppe Esposito
Didier François
Frédéric Frappart
Jim Freer
Natalia Frolova
Animesh K. Gain
Manolis Grillakis
Jordi Oriol Grima
Diego A. Guzmán
Laurie S. Huning
Monica Ionita
Maxim Kharlamov
Dao Nguyen Khoi
Natalie Kieboom
Maria Kireeva
Aristeidis Koutroulis
Waldo Lavado-Casimiro
Hong-Yi Li
María Carmen LLasat
David Macdonald
Johanna Mård
Hannah Mathew-Richards
Andrew McKenzie
Alfonso Mejia
Eduardo Mario Mendiondo
Marjolein Mens
Shifteh Mobini
Guilherme Samprogna Mohor
Viorica Nagavciuc
Thanh Ngo-Duc
Thi Thao Nguyen Huynh
Pham Thi Thao Nhi
Olga Petrucci
Hong Quan Nguyen
Pere Quintana-Seguí
Saman Razavi
Elena Ridolfi
Jannik Riegel
Md Shibly Sadik
Elisa Savelli
Alexey Sazonov
Sanjib Sharma
Johanna Sörensen
Felipe Augusto Arguello Souza
Kerstin Stahl
Max Steinhausen
Michael Stoelzle
Wiwiana Szalińska
Qiuhong Tang
Fuqiang Tian
Tamara Tokarczyk
Carolina Tovar
Thi Van Thu Tran
Marjolein H. J. Van Huijgevoort
Michelle T. H. van Vliet
Sergiy Vorogushyn
Thorsten Wagener
Yueling Wang
Doris E. Wendt
Elliot Wickham
Long Yang
Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini
Günter Blöschl
Giuliano Di Baldassarre
Abstract
Risk management has reduced vulnerability to floods and droughts globally1,2, 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 change.
Type
Publication
Nature
Main conclusions
- Flood and drought risk management has reduced vulnerability worldwide, yet overall impacts continue to rise.
- Analysing 45 pairs of events in the same locations, this study shows that management works for events within past experience but often fails when extremes exceed design limits, such as levee or reservoir capacity.
- Only where strong governance and sustained investment were in place did impacts decline despite higher hazard levels.
- The findings warn that unprecedented climate-driven extremes may outpace current risk management systems.
Citation:
Kreibich, H., Van Loon, A. F., Schröter, K., Ward, P. J., Mazzoleni, M., Sairam, N., Abeshu, G. W., Agafonova, S., AghaKouchak, A., Aksoy, H., Alvarez-Garreton, C., Aznar, B., Balkhi, L., Barendrecht, M. H., 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, M. C., Delus, C., Erfurt, M., Esposito, G., François, D., Frappart, F., Freer, J., Frolova, N., Gain, A. K., Grillakis, M., Grima, J. O., Guzmán, D. A., Huning, L. S., Ionita, M., Kharlamov, M., Khoi, D. N., Kieboom, N., Kireeva, M., Koutroulis, A., Lavado-Casimiro, W., Li, H., LLasat, M. C., Macdonald, D., Mård, J., Mathew-Richards, H., McKenzie, A., Mejia, A., Mendiondo, E. M., Mens, M., Mobini, S., Mohor, G. S., Nagavciuc, V., Ngo-Duc, T., Nguyen Huynh, T. T., Nhi, P. T. T., Petrucci, O., Quan Nguyen, H., Quintana-Seguí, P., Razavi, S., Ridolfi, E., Riegel, J., Sadik, M. S., Savelli, E., Sazonov, A., Sharma, S., Sörensen, J., Souza, F. A. A., Stahl, K., Steinhausen, M., Stoelzle, M., Szalińska, W., Tang, Q., Tian, F., Tokarczyk, T., Tovar, C., Tran, T. V. T., Van Huijgevoort, M. H. J., van Vliet, M. T. H., Vorogushyn, S., Wagener, T., Wang, Y., Wendt, D. E., Wickham, E., Yang, L., Zambrano-Bigiarini, M., Blöschl, G., & Di Baldassarre, G. (2022). The challenge of unprecedented floods and droughts in risk management. Nature, 608(7921), 80--86. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04917-5
