The Monetary Benefit of Early Flood Warnings in Europe

By Florian Pappenberger, Hannah L. Cloke, D. Parker, F. Wetterhall, D. Richardson, J. Thielen. 2015

228 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Effective disaster risk management relies on science-based solutions to close the gap between prevention and preparedness measures. The consultation on the United Nations post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction highlights the need for cross-border early warning systems to strengthen the preparedness phases of disaster risk management, in order to save lives and property and reduce the overall impact of severe events. Continental and global scale flood forecasting systems provide vital early flood warning information to national and international civil protection authorities, who can use this information to make decisions on how to prepare for upcoming floods. Here the potential monetary benefits of early flood warnings are estimated based on the forecasts of the continental-scale European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) using existing flood damage cost information and calculations of potential avoided flood damages. The benefits are of the order of 400 Euro for every 1 Euro invested. A sensitivity analysis is performed in order to test the uncertainty in the method and develop an envelope of potential monetary benefits of EFAS warnings. The results provide clear evidence that there is likely a substantial monetary benefit in this cross-border continental-scale flood early warning system. This supports the wider drive to implement early warning systems at the continental or global scale to improve our resilience to natural hazards.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ee952d90fd716368535d05c7ee068509f1d1ed56

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atmospheric Science

1. Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts
2. W. Botzen
3. Stéphane Hallegatte

In Global and Planetary Change

1. Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts
2. W. Botzen
3. Stéphane Hallegatte
4. Brenden Jongman
5. Paul D. Bates
6. Philip J. Ward
7. Daniel Osberghaus
8. Rafael Reuveny

Citations in the corpus

• A global framework for future costs and benefits of river-flood protection in urban areas (2017, background): “Future studies should consider costs and benefits of multiple adaptation strategies, such as retention areas, flood-proofing buildings, early warning systems 23 , building codes 12 , and post-disaster support.”