Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe ... - MemoFin.fr

Vulnerability to climate changein flood‐prone areas as well as climate change.However, it is difficult to detangle the specificeffect of climate change on these economic lossesfrom floods (Feyen et al., 2011). So the observationsprovide no conclusive and general proof on howclimate change affects flood risks. Also, the effect offlood protection measures is not unambiguous. Forexample, dikes are taken as a safety guarantee bypopulations living in flood-prone areas. Thus, theremay be incentives to build in these flood-prone areasand thus damage potential may have grown morethan if no or fewer measures would have been taken.Thus, damages when such an area was flooded mayhave been higher than in the case of less or no floodprotection (Kundzewicz et al., 2010).Map 5.1 shows the affected population and grossvalue added (GVA) affected by floods for the 2050sfor the 'Economy First' scenario, taking into accountboth climate change and socio‐economic changes.Economy First is a scenario where a globalisedand liberalised economy pushes the use of allavailable energy sources and an intensificationof agriculture where profitable. The adoption ofnew technologies and water-saving consciousnessare low and thus, water use increases. Only waterecosystems providing ecological goods and servicesfor economies are preserved and improved. Forthis Economy First scenario, for many parts ofEurope the GVA affected by floods for the 2050s islarger than for the baseline scenario. Differencesin the affected population are estimated to besmall. The analysis also shows an uneven patternof vulnerability across Europe. Note that the mapsshow the absolute number of affected people or GVAin a region rather than the percentage of populationor GVA. It should also be noted that there are largedifferences in changes in projected flood frequencyand intensity between different climate models.Map 5.1Estimated number of people and gross value affected by 100-year flood events inthe 'Economy First' scenario for the 2050sa) b)Note:Number of people (a) and amount of manufacturing gross value added (GVA), (b) affected by 100-year flood events in the'Economy First' scenario for the 2050s. Calculations based on median ensemble results from LISFLOOD linked to populationprojections from SCENES scenarios.Source: Flörke, Wimmer, Cornelius, et al., 2011.214 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012