EU flood losses may rise 380% to 23.5 billion euros by 2050

LONDON — Extreme floods like those swamping parts of Britain in recent months could become more frequent in Europe by 2050, more than quadrupling financial losses, if climate change worsens and more people live in vulnerable areas, research showed on Sunday.

The study said instances of very extreme floods, which now occur about once every 50 years, could shorten to about every 30 years, while cases of extreme damage now occurring once every 16 years could shorten to once every 10 years.

With shorter cycles of extreme floods and damage, the European’s current average losses of 4.9 billion euros a year could reach 23.5 billion euros by 2050, a rise of almost 380 per cent, the study in the journal Nature Climate Change pointed out.

Scientists at several universities and research centres in Europe and Australia used climate change models, economic data and river discharge data to form their conclusions.

“Due to climate change and gross domestic product growth, by 2050 a one-in-fifty-years-flood might be one in 30 years so the frequency of such losses increases dramatically — almost doubling,” said co-author Brenden Jongman, researcher at the IVM Institute for Environmental Studies at VU University Amsterdam.

Extreme damage can more than double the average damage rate used in the study’s calculations. In June last year, extensive flooding resulted in 12 billion euros ($16 billion) of losses in nine countries across central and eastern Europe, according to reinsurance company Munich Re. 

Rising costs

According to the study, investment in flood protection measures could help reduce the magnitude of overall flood losses in the future.

By investing around 1.75 billion euros in such measures, Europe’s annual flood losses could be reduced by around 7 billion euros, or around 30 per cent, by 2050, it estimated.

Rising costs from flood damage are due to several factors such as changes in climate, land use, population and wealth.

The European Environment Agency said last year that costs from flooding were also rising in part because more housing was being built in flood-prone areas.

Better reporting of floods has also contributed to the rising overall cost of these inundations.

A UN panel of climate scientists has said the Earth is set for more heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels from melting ice sheets that could swamp coasts as greenhouse gases built up in the atmosphere.

Other bodies, such as the European Environment Agency, have said it is likely that rising temperatures in Europe will change rainfall patterns, leading to more frequent and heavy floods in many regions.

Britain is currently experiencing its wettest winter on record, resulting in the worst floods for the country in 50 years.

Accountancy firm Deloitte said on Friday there were nearly 200,000 insurance claims in Britain in the last three months of 2013 due to storms and floods — the highest number of such claims over a fourth-quarter financial period for 10 years.

It has also estimated that the cost of repairing the damage caused could reach £1 billion ($1.66 billion).  Insurance companies such as Aviva and Swiss Re have urged for more action and investment to manage flooding.

Separately, natural disasters including droughts, floods and earthquakes cost China 421 billion yuan ($69 billion) in 2013, official data showed, nearly double the total in the previous year.

China has always been prone to natural disasters but a changing climate is causing more extreme weather, which hits food production, threatens scarce water resources and damages energy security, according to the government.

Data released by the National Statistics Bureau showed flooding and mudslides cost China 188 billion yuan in 2013, 20 billion more than in the previous year.

Damage from droughts rose nearly fourfold to 90 billion yuan, while snowfall, freezes and ocean-related costs totalled more than 42 billion yuan.

Earthquakes, primarily one in Sichuan province in April that killed 186 people, added nearly 100 billion yuan to the costs.

“In recent years, China has seen a combination of floods and droughts simultaneously, with the rain belt moving north past the Yangtze River,” Zhu Congwen, a researcher with the China Academy of Meteorological Sciences told Reuters, speaking in a personal capacity.

Northern China is seeing more droughts while typhoons are arriving earlier, wetlands drying up and sea levels rising, the  government indicated in a report last year.

Some regions in China, such as the southern province of Yunnan, are in their third year of crippling droughts.

In August last year, an extended heatwave across six provinces in central China meant crops from 900,000 hectares of farmland failed and 13 million people had no easy access to drinking water.

In the same month, record rain — in some areas the most heavy in more than 100 years —  and storms killed more than 100 people and caused huge floods in the northeast and northwest.

Last year’s disasters were not as bad as 2010, when record flooding killed more than 1,000 people and led to 15 million being forced from their homes.

But the trend is for an increasing impact from wild weather.

In December, the government said it was poorly prepared to tackle the impact of climate change and released a plan identifying main areas for improvement in a bid to limit damage.  

Infrastructure, agriculture, water resources, coastal zones, forests and human health were listed as priorities.

China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, which scientists say cause climate change, but has pledged to cut its emissions to 40-45 per cent per unit of gross domestic product by 2020 compared with 2005 levels.