Projecting Future Flood Losses to Company Assets in Europe: The Role of Precautionary Measures

Flooding has become an escalating threat over the past years, driven by climate and socio-economic changes. In Europe, floods now surpass other natural disasters in severity, causing substantial economic losses, particularly in the commercial sector. While river flood impacts on agriculture and residential properties have been extensively studied, research on commercial sector losses remains limited despite their significantly high financial burden. This study enhances river flood risk assessment for commercial assets by integrating flood hazard scenarios with state-of-the-art Bayesian Network-based flood loss model with object-specific exposure data. It estimates the expected annual damage (EAD) to commercial properties across Europe under a baseline and potential future scenarios shaped by climate change, exposure dynamics, and their combined effects. Additionally, the study assesses the potential of property-level precautionary measures to mitigate flood risks. Results indicate that, compared to the baseline (year - 1995), the EAD values could rise more than 5-fold under RCP4.5 scenario and 7-fold under RCP8.5 scenario by the end of the century. However, a policy scenario in which all companies implement at least one precautionary measure ("measures for all") effectively offsets these projected losses. This underscores the crucial role of individual actions in reducing future flood impacts.

DEVADAS Bhadra;  PAPROTNY Dominik;  KREIBICH Heidi;  STEINHAUSEN Max J.;  OOSTWEGEL Laurens J.;  ENDENDIJK Thijs;  SCHOPPA Lukas;  DOMENEGHETTI Alessio;  CASTELLARIN Attilio;  DOTTORI Francesco;  D'ANGELO Claudia;  MENTASCHI Lorenzo;  KUIRY Soumendra N.;  SAIRAM Nivedita; 

2025-11-06

JOHN WILEY AND SONS INC.

JRC141701

2328-4277 (online),   

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2025EF006285,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC141701,   

10.1029/ 2025EF006285 (online),