| Title | European Flood Risk Predicted to Double by 2050 | |
| Date | Monday March 03 2014, @06:00AM | |
| Author | girlwhowaspluggedout | |
| Topic | ||
| from the time-to-build-that-ark-then dept. | ||
AnonTechie writes:
"British newspaper The Independent reports that a new study has found that the frequency of extreme flooding across Europe may double by 2050, while the annual economic losses resulting from floods may grow from 4.2 billion to 23.5 billion euros. The study, which was published in Nature Climate Change (paywalled), foresees that about two-thirds of the risk increase by 2050 will be due to economic growth, while one-third will be caused by climate change. The study's findings also include a correlation between floods in different European countries:
Current risk-assessment models assume that each river basin is independent. But in actuality, river flows across Europe are closely correlated, rising and falling in response to large-scale atmospheric patterns that bring rains and dry spells to large regions.
According to Reuters, the study also predicts that 'instances of very extreme floods, which now occur about once every 50 years, could shorten to about every 30 years, while cases of extreme damage now occurring once every 16 years could shorten to once every 10 years.' On the bright side, the study also said that 'investment in flood protection measures could help reduce the magnitude of overall flood losses in the future. By investing around 1.75 billion euros in such measures, Europe's annual flood losses could be reduced by around 7 billion euros, or around 30 percent, by 2050.'
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