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Journal Article

Limited progress in global reduction of vulnerability to flood impacts over the past two decades

Authors
/persons/resource/inga.sauer

Sauer,  Inga
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/Benedikt.Mester

Mester,  Benedikt
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/Katja.Frieler

Frieler,  Katja
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/sandra.zimmermann

Zimmermann,  Sandra
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/Schewe

Schewe,  Jacob
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/christian.otto

Otto,  Christian
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

External Ressource

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7306882
(Supplementary material)

Fulltext (public)

s43247-024-01401-y.pdf
(Publisher version), 16MB

Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Sauer, I., Mester, B., Frieler, K., Zimmermann, S., Schewe, J., Otto, C. (2024): Limited progress in global reduction of vulnerability to flood impacts over the past two decades. - Communications Earth and Environment, 5, 239.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01401-y


Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_29858
Abstract
Global flood impacts have risen in recent decades. While increasing exposure was the dominant driver of surging impacts, counteracting vulnerability reductions have been detected, but were too weak to reverse this trend. To assess the ongoing progress on vulnerability reduction, we combine a recently available dataset of flooded areas derived from satellite imagery for 913 events with four global disaster databases and socio-economic data. Event-specific flood vulnerabilities for assets, fatalities and displacements reveal a lack of progress in reducing global flood vulnerability from 2000—2018. We examine the relationship between vulnerabilities and human development, inequality, flood exposure and local structural characteristics. We find that vulnerability levels are significantly lower in areas with good structural characteristics and significantly higher in low developed areas. However, socio-economic development was insufficient to reduce vulnerabilities over the study period. Nevertheless, the strong correlation between vulnerability and structural characteristics suggests further potential for adaptation through vulnerability reduction.