Correlation structure of economic losses due to floods across Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Zanardo ◽  
Rebecca Smith ◽  
Ludovico Nicotina ◽  
Anongnart Assteerawatt ◽  
Arno Hilberts
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Correlation Structure ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
River Flooding ◽  
The North ◽  
Negative State ◽  
Different Seasons ◽  
Flood Losses

<p>Large scale climatic patterns and river network topology have an important impact on the space-time structure of floods. For example, in a recent study we showed that the effect of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is visible in the structure of economic losses at the European scale. The analysis revealed that in Northern Europe the majority of historic winter floods occurred during a positive NAO state, whereas the majority of summer floods occurred during a negative state. Through the application of a state-of-the-art flood catastrophe model, we also observed that there exists a statistically significant relationship between economic flood losses and the NAO. In this study we further advance the analysis by exploring the correlation structure of flood losses in Europe during different seasons and for different NAO states.  Flood loss correlation is measured in terms of “loss synchrony scale” (LSC), a metric formalized for this study following the definition of “flood synchrony scale” in Berghuijs et al. (2019). For an individual event and an individual CRESTA region, the LSC is defined as the maximum radius around the CRESTA, within which at least half of the other CRESTA regions experience a loss due to the same event. We analyse the LSC across Europe, as produced by the loss model, and check   for consistency with the data-based flood synchrony scale in Berghujs et al. (2019). We further explore how the LSC changes between different seasons, and between NAO states. This analysis can help improve financial preparedness to catastrophic floods as a better understanding of the correlation structure of the flood events allows for a better distribution of resources as well as a more efficient application of mitigation measures.</p><p>Berghuijs W R, Allen S T, Harrigan S and Kirchner J W 2019 Growing spatial scales of synchronous river flooding in Europe Geophys. Res. Lett. 46 1423–8</p>

scholarly journals Biogeography of acoustic biodiversity of NW Mediterranean coralligenous reefs

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Di Iorio ◽  
Manon Audax ◽  
Julie Deter ◽  
Florian Holon ◽  
Julie Lossent ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
Marine Biodiversity ◽  
Predator Species ◽  
The North ◽  
Mediterranean Habitats ◽  
Geographical Regions ◽  
Nw Mediterranean

AbstractMonitoring the biodiversity of key habitats and understanding the drivers across spatial scales is essential for preserving ecosystem functions and associated services. Coralligenous reefs are threatened marine biodiversity hotspots that are challenging to monitor. As fish sounds reflect biodiversity in other habitats, we unveiled the biogeography of coralligenous reef sounds across the north-western Mediterranean using data from 27 sites covering 2000 km and 3 regions over a 3-year period. We assessed how acoustic biodiversity is related to habitat parameters and environmental status. We identified 28 putative fish sound types, which is up to four times as many as recorded in other Mediterranean habitats. 40% of these sounds are not found in other coastal habitats, thus strongly related to coralligenous reefs. Acoustic diversity differed between geographical regions. Ubiquitous sound types were identified, including sounds from top-predator species and others that were more specifically related to the presence of ecosystem engineers (red coral, gorgonians), which are key players in maintaining habitat function. The main determinants of acoustic community composition were depth and percentage coverage of coralligenous outcrops, suggesting that fish-related acoustic communities exhibit bathymetric stratification and are related to benthic reef assemblages. Multivariate analysis also revealed that acoustic communities can reflect different environmental states. This study presents the first large-scale map of acoustic fish biodiversity providing insights into the ichthyofauna that is otherwise difficult to assess because of reduced diving times. It also highlights the potential of passive acoustics in providing new aspects of the correlates of biogeographical patterns of this emblematic habitat relevant for monitoring and conservation.

scholarly journals Inter-comparison of daily precipitation products for large-scale hydro-climatic applications over Canada

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 2163-2185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jefferson S. Wong ◽  
Saman Razavi ◽  
Barrie R. Bonsal ◽  
Howard S. Wheater ◽  
Zilefac E. Asong
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
The North ◽  
Global Precipitation Climatology Centre ◽  
Multiple Data ◽  
Geographical Regions ◽  
Central Canada ◽  
Different Seasons ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Global Precipitation

Abstract. A number of global and regional gridded climate products based on multiple data sources are available that can potentially provide reliable estimates of precipitation for climate and hydrological studies. However, research into the consistency of these products for various regions has been limited and in many cases non-existent. This study inter-compares several gridded precipitation products over 15 terrestrial ecozones in Canada for different seasons. The spatial and temporal variability of the errors (relative to station observations) was quantified over the period of 1979 to 2012 at a 0.5° and daily spatio-temporal resolution. These datasets were assessed in their ability to represent the daily variability of precipitation amounts by four performance measures: percentage of bias, root mean square error, correlation coefficient, and standard deviation ratio. Results showed that most of the datasets were relatively skilful in central Canada. However, they tended to overestimate precipitation amounts in the west and underestimate in the north and east, with the underestimation being particularly dominant in northern Canada (above 60° N). The global product by WATCH Forcing Data ERA-Interim (WFDEI) augmented by Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) data (WFDEI [GPCC]) performed best with respect to different metrics. The Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA) product performed comparably with WFDEI [GPCC]; however, it only provides data starting in 2002. All the datasets performed best in summer, followed by autumn, spring, and winter in order of decreasing quality. Findings from this study can provide guidance to potential users regarding the performance of different precipitation products for a range of geographical regions and time periods.

scholarly journals Tropical Cyclone-Induced Hazards Caused by Storm Surges and Large Waves on the Coast of China

Geosciences ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zai-Jin You
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Chinese Economy ◽  
Coastal Hazards ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The North ◽  
Coastal Waves ◽  
Storm Wave ◽  
Rising Sea Levels

The mainland coast of China is about 18,000 km long and houses about 70% of China’s largest cities and 50% of its population. For the last few decades, the rapid growth of the Chinese economy has resulted in extensive development of the coastal infrastructure and property, large-scale expansion of coastal ports, excessive reclamation of coastal land, and a significant increase in the coastal population. Previous studies have indicated that tropical cyclones (TCs) have struck the coast of China at a higher frequency and intensity, and TC-induced coastal hazards have resulted in heavy human losses and huge losses to the Chinese coastal economy. In analyzing the long-term and most recent coastal hazard data collected on the coast of China, this study has found that TC-induced storm surges are responsible for 88% of the direct coastal economic losses, while TC-induced large coastal waves have caused heavy loss of human lives, and that the hazard-caused losses are shown to increase spatially from the north to south, peak in the southern coastal sector, and well correlate to storm wave energy flux. The frequency and intensity of coastal hazards on the coast of China are expected to increase in response to future changing TC conditions and rising sea levels. A simple two-parameter conceptual model is also presented for the assessment of coastal inundation and erosion hazards on the coast of China.

Wind wake effects of large offshore wind farms, an underrated impact on the marine ecosystem?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinna Schrum ◽  
Naveed Akhtar ◽  
Nils Christiansen ◽  
Jeff Carpenter ◽  
Ute Daewel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Layer ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Offshore Wind Farms ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Ocean Hydrodynamics

<p>The North Sea is a world-wide hot-spot in offshore wind energy production and installed capacity is rapidly increasing. Current and potential future developments raise concerns about the implications for the environment and ecosystem. Offshore wind farms change the physical environment across scales in various ways, which have the potential to modify biogeochemical fluxes and ecosystem structure. The foundations of wind farms cause oceanic wakes and sediment fluxes into the water column. Oceanic wakes have spatial scales of about O(1km) and structure local ecosystems within and in the vicinity of wind farms. Spatially larger effects can be expected from wind deficits and atmospheric boundary layer turbulence arising from wind farms. Wind disturbances extend often over muliple tenths of kilometer and are detectable as large scale wind wakes. Moreover, boundary layer disturbances have the potential to change the local weather conditions and foster e.g. local cloud development. The atmospheric changes in turn changes ocean circulation and turbulence on the same large spatial scales and modulate ocean nutrient fluxes. The latter directly influences biological productivity and food web structure. These cascading effects from atmosphere to ocean hydrodynamics, biogeochemistry and foodwebs are likely underrated while assessing potential and risks of offshore wind.</p><p>We present latest evidence for local to regional environmental impacts, with a focus on wind wakes and discuss results from observations, remote sensing and modelling.  Using a suite of coupled atmosphere, ocean hydrodynamic and biogeochemistry models, we quantify the impact of large-scale offshore wind farms in the North Sea. The local and regional meteorological effects are studied using the regional climate model COSMO-CLM and the coupled ocean hydrodynamics-ecosystem model ECOSMO is used to study the consequent effects on ocean hydrodynamics and ocean productivity. Both models operate at a horizontal resolution of 2km.</p>

scholarly journals Flood vulnerability and risk assessment of urban traditional buildings in a heritage district of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 2221-2241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dina D'Ayala ◽  
Kai Wang ◽  
Yuan Yan ◽  
Helen Smith ◽  
Ashleigh Massam ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Exceedance Probability ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Flood Vulnerability ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Vulnerability Model ◽  
Wide Range

Abstract. Flood hazard is increasing in frequency and magnitude in major South East Asian metropolitan areas due to fast urban development and changes in climate, threatening people's property and life. Typically, flood management actions are mostly focused on large-scale defences, such as river embankments or discharge channels or tunnels. However, these are difficult to implement in town centres without affecting the value of their heritage districts and might not provide sufficient mitigation. Therefore, urban heritage buildings may become vulnerable to flood events, even when they were originally designed and built with intrinsic resilient measures, based on the local knowledge of the natural environment and its threats at the time. Their aesthetic and cultural and economic values mean that they can represent a proportionally high contribution to losses in any event. Hence it is worth investigating more localized, tailored mitigation measures. Vulnerability assessment studies are essential to inform the feasibility and development of such strategies. In this study we propose a multilevel methodology to assess the flood vulnerability and risk of residential buildings in an area of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, characterized by traditional timber housing. The multiscale flood vulnerability model is based on a wide range of parameters, covering building-specific parameters, neighbourhood conditions and catchment area conditions. The obtained vulnerability index shows the ability to reflect different exposure by different building types and their relative locations. The vulnerability model is combined with high-resolution fluvial and pluvial flood maps providing scenario events with 0.1 % annual exceedance probability (AEP). A damage function of generic applicability is developed to compute the economic losses at individual building and sample levels. The study provides evidence that results obtained for a small district can be scaled up to the city level, to inform both generic and specific protection strategies.

scholarly journals Climate and competition influence sockeye salmon population dynamics across the Northeast Pacific Ocean

2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (6) ◽  
pp. 943-949 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Connors ◽  
Michael J. Malick ◽  
Gregory T. Ruggerone ◽  
Pete Rand ◽  
Milo Adkison ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sockeye Salmon ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Pacific Salmon ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Pink Salmon ◽  
Oncorhynchus Gorbuscha ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
The North

Pacific salmon productivity is influenced by ocean conditions and interspecific interactions, yet their combined effects are poorly understood. Using data from 47 North American sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) populations, we present evidence that the magnitude and direction of climate and competition effects vary over large spatial scales. In the south, a warm ocean and abundant salmon competitors combined to strongly reduce sockeye productivity, whereas in the north, a warm ocean substantially increased productivity and offset the negative effects of competition at sea. From 2005 to 2015, the approximately 82 million adult pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) produced annually from hatcheries were estimated to have reduced the productivity of southern sockeye salmon by ∼15%, on average. In contrast, for sockeye at the northwestern end of their range, the same level of hatchery production was predicted to have reduced the positive effects of a warming ocean by ∼50% (from a ∼10% to a ∼5% increase in productivity, on average). These findings reveal spatially dependent effects of climate and competition on sockeye productivity and highlight the need for international discussions about large-scale hatchery production.

scholarly journals Projected Seasonal Changes in Large-Scale Global Precipitation and Temperature Extremes Based on the CMIP5 Ensemble

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (13) ◽  
pp. 5651-5671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wang Zhan ◽  
Xiaogang He ◽  
Justin Sheffield ◽  
Eric F. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Extreme Events ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Extreme Temperature ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Extreme Precipitation Events ◽  
The Future ◽  
Precipitation Events

AbstractOver the past decades, significant changes in temperature and precipitation have been observed, including changes in the mean and extremes. It is critical to understand the trends in hydroclimatic extremes and how they may change in the future as they pose substantial threats to society through impacts on agricultural production, economic losses, and human casualties. In this study, we analyzed projected changes in the characteristics, including frequency, seasonal timing, and maximum spatial and temporal extent, as well as severity, of extreme temperature and precipitation events, using the severity–area–duration (SAD) method and based on a suite of 37 climate models archived in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). Comparison between the CMIP5 model estimated extreme events and an observation-based dataset [Princeton Global Forcing (PGF)] indicates that climate models have moderate success in reproducing historical statistics of extreme events. Results from the twenty-first-century projections suggest that, on top of the rapid warming indicated by a significant increase in mean temperature, there is an overall wetting trend in the Northern Hemisphere with increasing wet extremes and decreasing dry extremes, whereas the Southern Hemisphere will have more intense wet extremes. The timing of extreme precipitation events will change at different spatial scales, with the largest change occurring in southern Asia. The probability of concurrent dry/hot and wet/hot extremes is projected to increase under both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, whereas little change is detected in the probability of concurrent dry/cold events and only a slight decrease of the joint probability of wet/cold extremes is expected in the future.

scholarly journals Incorporating Archaeological Resources in Landscape-Level Planning and Management

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Doelle ◽  
Pat Barker ◽  
David Cushman ◽  
Michael Heilen ◽  
Cynthia Herhahn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Scale Development ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Landscape Scale ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Key Drivers ◽  
Multiple Resource ◽  
Landscape Level

AbstractThe increasing importance of landscape-scale research and preservation goals within the archaeological profession coincides with expanded threats to the archaeological record through massive energy exploration and infrastructure projects and through the cumulative effects of smaller-scale development. It is further stimulated by the recognition that conservation strategies that span multiple resource classes and disciplines are best formulated at multiple and larger spatial scales. These are key drivers behind efforts to improve the ways that archaeological resources are considered in the context of development-related planning and implementation, including mitigation measures. In a prominent example, recent department-level direction from the Secretary of the Interior calls specifically for landscape-level planning as a critical component of responses to both large-scale development and climate change. This article reviews three current approaches to landscape-level planning in archaeology and calls for increased commitment to advancing their development and effectiveness.

scholarly journals Unraveling Long-Term Flood Risk Dynamics Across the Murray-Darling Basin Using a Large-Scale Hydraulic Model and Satellite Data

2022 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Ceola ◽  
Alessio Domeneghetti ◽  
Guy J. P. Schumann
Keyword(s):  
Flood Risk ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Flood Hazard ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Murray Darling Basin ◽  
Flooded Areas

River floods are one of the most devastating extreme hydrological events, with oftentimes remarkably negative effects for human society and the environment. Economic losses and social consequences, in terms of affected people and human fatalities, are increasing worldwide due to climate change and urbanization processes. Long-term dynamics of flood risk are intimately driven by the temporal evolution of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. Although needed for effective flood risk management, a comprehensive long-term analysis of all these components is not straightforward, mostly due to a lack of hydrological data, exposure information, and large computational resources required for 2-D flood model simulations at adequately high resolution over large spatial scales. This study tries to overcome these limitations and attempts to investigate the dynamics of different flood risk components in the Murray-Darling basin (MDB, Australia) in the period 1973–2014. To this aim, the LISFLOOD-FP model, i.e., a large-scale 2-D hydrodynamic model, and satellite-derived built-up data are employed. Results show that the maximum extension of flooded areas decreases in time, without revealing any significant geographical transfer of inundated areas across the study period. Despite this, a remarkable increment of built-up areas characterizes MDB, with larger annual increments across not-flooded locations compared to flooded areas. When combining flood hazard and exposure, we find that the overall extension of areas exposed to high flood risk more than doubled within the study period, thus highlighting the need for improving flood risk awareness and flood mitigation strategies in the near future.

scholarly journals Formation-Evolutionary Mechanism Analysis and Impacts of Human Activities on the 20 August 2019 Clustered Debris Flows Event in Wenchuan County, Southwestern China

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Li ◽  
Xing-nian Liu ◽  
Bin-rui Gan ◽  
Xie-kang Wang ◽  
Xing-guo Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Debris Flow ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Debris Flows ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Field Investigation ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Southwestern China ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Mechanism Analysis ◽  
Prediction And Prevention

Characterized by large scale, high frequency, and strong destructiveness, debris flow has become the most noticeable geohazards throughout the world, especially in the mountainous areas of southwestern China. On August 20, 2019, large-scale heavy rainfall pummeled Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, Southwestern China, which resulted in a cluster of debris flows (the “8·20” clustered debris flows event), and caused considerable economic losses (approximately 3.4 billion RMB were lost) and heavy casualties (48,862 people were displaced, 16 people died and 22 people went missing). Based on field investigation, image data interpretation, mechanism analysis, and other methods, this study reveals the formation mechanism, dynamic evolutionary process, and impacts of human activities on the “8·20” clustered debris flows event. Results from a comprehensive analysis indicate that the occurrence of short-term, high-intensity rainfall and the excessive supply of solid material were the main factors that triggered this catastrophic event. With the debris flow flowing into the main river, this event presented an extremely apparent disaster chain effect. It is also found that improper site selection and inadequate design of human activities played a crucial role in the movement process of the debris flow that directly aggravated the losses. Finally, to improve debris flow prediction and prevention, some early warning and mitigation measures are discussed.

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