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Global-scale river flood vulnerability in the last 50 years

The impacts of flooding are expected to rise due to population increases, economic growth and climate change. Hence, understanding the physical and spatiotemporal characteristics of risk drivers (hazard, exposure and vulnerability) is required to develop effective flood mitigation measures. Here, th...

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Autores principales: Tanoue, Masahiro, Hirabayashi, Yukiko, Ikeuchi, Hiroaki
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5080543/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27782160
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36021
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author Tanoue, Masahiro
Hirabayashi, Yukiko
Ikeuchi, Hiroaki
author_facet Tanoue, Masahiro
Hirabayashi, Yukiko
Ikeuchi, Hiroaki
author_sort Tanoue, Masahiro
collection PubMed
description The impacts of flooding are expected to rise due to population increases, economic growth and climate change. Hence, understanding the physical and spatiotemporal characteristics of risk drivers (hazard, exposure and vulnerability) is required to develop effective flood mitigation measures. Here, the long-term trend in flood vulnerability was analysed globally, calculated from the ratio of the reported flood loss or damage to the modelled flood exposure using a global river and inundation model. A previous study showed decreasing global flood vulnerability over a shorter period using different disaster data. The long-term analysis demonstrated for the first time that flood vulnerability to economic losses in upper-middle, lower-middle and low-income countries shows an inverted U-shape, as a result of the balance between economic growth and various historical socioeconomic efforts to reduce damage, leading to non-significant upward or downward trends. We also show that the flood-exposed population is affected by historical changes in population distribution, with changes in flood vulnerability of up to 48.9%. Both increasing and decreasing trends in flood vulnerability were observed in different countries, implying that population growth scenarios considering spatial distribution changes could affect flood risk projections.
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spelling pubmed-50805432016-10-31 Global-scale river flood vulnerability in the last 50 years Tanoue, Masahiro Hirabayashi, Yukiko Ikeuchi, Hiroaki Sci Rep Article The impacts of flooding are expected to rise due to population increases, economic growth and climate change. Hence, understanding the physical and spatiotemporal characteristics of risk drivers (hazard, exposure and vulnerability) is required to develop effective flood mitigation measures. Here, the long-term trend in flood vulnerability was analysed globally, calculated from the ratio of the reported flood loss or damage to the modelled flood exposure using a global river and inundation model. A previous study showed decreasing global flood vulnerability over a shorter period using different disaster data. The long-term analysis demonstrated for the first time that flood vulnerability to economic losses in upper-middle, lower-middle and low-income countries shows an inverted U-shape, as a result of the balance between economic growth and various historical socioeconomic efforts to reduce damage, leading to non-significant upward or downward trends. We also show that the flood-exposed population is affected by historical changes in population distribution, with changes in flood vulnerability of up to 48.9%. Both increasing and decreasing trends in flood vulnerability were observed in different countries, implying that population growth scenarios considering spatial distribution changes could affect flood risk projections. Nature Publishing Group 2016-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC5080543/ /pubmed/27782160 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36021 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Tanoue, Masahiro
Hirabayashi, Yukiko
Ikeuchi, Hiroaki
Global-scale river flood vulnerability in the last 50 years
title Global-scale river flood vulnerability in the last 50 years
title_full Global-scale river flood vulnerability in the last 50 years
title_fullStr Global-scale river flood vulnerability in the last 50 years
title_full_unstemmed Global-scale river flood vulnerability in the last 50 years
title_short Global-scale river flood vulnerability in the last 50 years
title_sort global-scale river flood vulnerability in the last 50 years
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5080543/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27782160
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36021
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