A Theoretical Framework to Assess the Impact of Flooding on Dairy Cattle Farms: Identification of Direct Damage from an Animal Welfare Perspective

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Identifying the damage caused by extreme weather events due to the climate change phenomena to formulate targeted coping strategies and policies is an issue that concerns all economics sectors. To date, the impact of flooding events on agriculture, particularly livestock, has been minimally investigated. For this reason, this study seeks to identify flood damage to livestock production, focusing in particular on dairy cattle farms. In fact, the herd is the main source of income for dairy farmers and the impact of flood on dairy farm can lead to several problems that can seriously undermine dairy cattle welfare and consequently the production outcome after a flood event. Therefore, this study identified and quantified the flood damage that may affect dairy herds, as reported in the literature. This study might help the development of a strategy able to assess direct damages to livestock welfare caused by flood events, provide advantages for farm management and contribute to farm resilience after a natural disaster. ABSTRACT: For the economic sectors, the need to address the challenges posed by natural disasters due to climate change is an outstanding issue. To date, according to the European Commission (2019), there is still a gap in the estimation of the costs of flood in all European countries and the direct impact that these floods have on agricultural activities. More specifically, the damage to livestock has been minimally studied. The aim of this study is is therefore to identify the flood damage that affects dairy cattle farms, focusing on the damage to herds caused by a flood event; in fact, poor welfare conditions of dairy cattle directly affect production and thus farm revenue. To accomplish the aim of this study, a framework was first developed to identify possible damage types. Then, scientific literature focusing on the identification of flood damage to dairy herds was reviewed, and to quantify this damage to herds, literature sources providing information on the magnitude of variation in the identified damage types were used. Thus, our results provide relevant information on the variables that should be taken into account when assessing of the direct damage affecting the overall welfare of a dairy herd after a flood event. This evidence could then contribute to the development of tools aimed at assessing damage to dairy cattle on flood-affected farms.