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posted by martyb on Thursday March 19 2020, @09:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the had-a-sinking-feeling dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

An international team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has found that current estimates of flood risk rely upon methods for calculating flood damage which are inadequately verified and match poorly with observations.

[...] When calculating flood risk—that is, translating modelled representations of the physical of phenomenon of flooding to its impacts—it is common to apply a 'depth-damage function' or curve, which relates a given water depth to a proportional building loss (for example one metre of water equals 50 per cent loss of building value).

[...] The new study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, used commonly applied curves, developed by various US government agencies, and examined how they compare to millions of actual flood insurance claims made in the US.

[...] It found that universally applied depth-damage curves show low skill in the replication of property-level damages, rendering the results of projects where they have been applied (for example the justification of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment) suspect.

[...] At low inundation depths, most damages are somewhat minimal (<10 per cent of building value) with a very low chance of experiencing maximal (>90 per cent) damage. But as depth increases, the distribution shifts and swings towards greater probability of high (>90 per cent) damage and lower probability of low (<10 per cent) damage.

Lead author, Dr. Oliver Wing from Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said: "This relationship can be represented with a beta distribution, meaning future flood risk analyses can employ a function which properly captures the true stochastic relationship between depth and damage."

More information: O. Wing, N. Pinter, P. Bates, C. Kousky. New insights into US flood vulnerability revealed from flood insurance big data.Nature Communications, 2020.

Journal information: Nature Communications


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  • (Score: 2) by jbWolf on Friday March 20 2020, @10:06AM

    by jbWolf (2774) <jbNO@SPAMjb-wolf.com> on Friday March 20 2020, @10:06AM (#973440) Homepage

    Yeah, ok, not directly related to the article, but I grew up in a place with a lot of water.

    There was one spot which went under a bridge. Being the low point, water naturally collected there in heavy rains, but was equally whisked away by the drains and pumps. When they expanded part of the area, it started flooding there on a regular basis. This was one of the main areas of travel for many people to get to work in the mornings. So, you could either try to be on time and risk flooding your car, or choose to be late for work and then risk flooding your car if the water hadn't drained yet.

    This is but one example I have.

    100% man made.

    --
    www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
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