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Aquisition of flood losses and damage determining factors of the Elbe and Danube floods in August 2002


Acquisition of flood losses and damage determining factors of the Elbe and Danube floods in August 2002

 

In the area of flood protection, risk analysis including hazard and vulnerability assessments, become more and more important. Therefore, besides hydrologic and hydraulic studies, also appraisals of the consequences of different flood events are needed. Commonly, these appraisals are based on damage functions depending on the building type or use and the inundation depth. But losses are influenced by many parameters, whereas so far relatively little information is available on the connections between actual flood losses and damage determining factors.
The connections between the extent of direct property damage on residential and industrial buildings and movable inventory on the one hand and early warning, disaster management, flood characteristics, social-economic variables, regional- and use-specific factors on the other hand shall be determined by computer-aided telephone interviews of 1697 flood affected households and 415 companies. For example, loss reducing effects of private precaution were quantified.
On basis of these results, the conventional methods for estimating potential flood losses will be enhanced to considerably improved flood-risk analysis and cost-benefit analysis.

 



© Dr. Heidi Kreibich
Factors that influence the flood loss of buildings (adapted from Thieken et al. 2005, WRR)

Publications

Thieken AH, Müller M, Kreibich H, Merz B (2005) Flood damage and influencing factors: New insights from the August 2002 flood in Germany. Water Resour. Res., 41(12): 1-16

Kreibich H, Thieken AH, Müller M, Merz B (2005) Precautionary measures reduce flood losses of households and companies - Insights from the 2002 flood in Saxony, Germany. In: van Alphen J., van Beek E., Taal M. (eds.): Floods, from Defence to Management. Taylor & Francis Group, London, 851-859
Müller M, Kreibich H (2005) Private Vorsorgemaßnahmen können Hochwasserschäden reduzieren. Schadenprisma, 1: 4-11

Müller M, Thieken A.H. (2005) Elementartarife könnten weiter differenziert werden – Keller und Öltanks erhöhen das Schadenpotential – Untersuchung des Sommerhochwassers 2002. Versicherungswirtschaft, 2: 145-147

Müller, M., A. Thieken & H. Kreibich (2006): Monetäre Bewertung von Schäden durch extreme Hochwasserereignisse - Financial assessment of losses caused by severe flood events. In: DWA (Hrsg.): Internationales DWA-Symposium zur Wasserwirtschaft; Klimaänderung und Folgen für die Wasserwirtschaft, 60-69

Kreibich, H., M. Müller, A. H. Thieken, and B. Merz (2007), Flood precaution of companies and their ability to cope with the flood in August 2002 in Saxony, Germany, Water Resour. Res., 43, W03408, doi:10.1029/2005WR004691

Kreibich H, Müller M, Thieken AH, Merz B (2007) Main factors influencing the economic flood damage of companies. In: Schumann A, Pahlow M (eds.): Reducing the Vulnerability of Societies to Water Related Risks at the Basin Scale, IAHS publ. 317, 384-388

Thieken AH, Kreibich H, Müller M, Nicklisch M, Merz B (2007) Flood losses in private households: analysis of influencing factors and implications for flood loss modelling. In: Schumann A, Pahlow M (eds.): Reducing the Vulnerability of Societies to Water Related Risks at the Basin Scale, IAHS publ. 317, 312-316

Thieken AH, Kreibich H, Müller M, Merz B (2007) Coping with floods: A survey among private households affected by the August 2002 flood in Germany. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 52(5) 1016-1037

Project partners

Dr. Heidi Kreibich, Dr. Annegret Thieken, Prof. Bruno Merz

Meike Müller, Thomas Axer
Deutsche Rückversicherung AG Düsseldorf

Project period

November 2002 – October 2005

Funding

Deutsche Rückversicherung AG and German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF; 01SFR9969/5) 



 




Created: 14.05.2008  to top