EuFloLoss
Large-Scale European Flooding under Climate Change: Meteorological and Hydrological Conditions Translated to Economic Loss (EuFloLoss)
EuFloLoss is a close collaboration between meteorological and hydrological perspectives to address the economic risk of flooding in the Elbe river basin under present day climate conditions, and changes under future anthropogenic influences. The aim of the project is to develop a methodology that considers the complete flood risk chain, from the flood-triggering meteorological event through runoff generation in watersheds, flood routing in rivers to the flood damage.
The central idea of the methodology is the classification of large-scale meteorological (large scale atmospheric circulation patterns) and hydrological (initial conditions) situations leading to floods. The meteorological classification is accomplished by the Institute of Meteorology at the Freie Universität Berlin. Our focus lies on the classification of the initial hydrological conditions leading to floods. Different indicators of initial hydrologic conditions are estimated through application of a rainfall runoff model. For each combination of meteorological and hydrological states, the probabilities of different magnitudes of flood flows will be established, which will be used as a basis of flood risk assessment.
For the purpose of flood inundation simulation, a hydraulic model will be developed and coupled to the hydrological model. Damage estimation for private households and the commercial sector will be based on the FLEMO models that have recently been developed at GFZ.
A similar procedure is followed for estimating changing risks under anthropogenic modification of the atmospheric composition.
This estimation of severity of floods combined with the probabilities and corresponding return periods of conditions from the meteorological side and from the hydrological side will thus contribute to a better understanding of the flood risk at regional scale and the quantitative estimation of the impacts under present day conditions and under climatic change.
