Description
The map depicts flood prone areas for river flood events with 50-year return period. Its extent comprises most of the geographical Europe and all the river basins entering the Mediterranean and Black Seas in the Caucasus, Middle East and Northern Africa countries. Cell values indicate water depth (in m). The map can be used to assess flood exposure and risk of population and assets. NOTE: this dataset is based on JRC elaborations and is not an official flood hazard map (for details and limitations please refer to related publications).
Contact
Contributors
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- Francesco Dottori
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0000-0002-1388-3303
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- Lorenzo Alfieri
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0000-0002-3616-386X
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- Alessandra Bianchi
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- Jon Skoien
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- Peter Salamon
How to cite
Dottori, Francesco; Alfieri, Lorenzo; Bianchi, Alessandra; Skoien, Jon; Salamon, Peter (2016): River flood hazard map for Europe and the Mediterranean Basin region - 50-year return period. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC) [Dataset] PID: http://data.europa.eu/89h/jrc-floods-floodmapeu_rp50y-tif
Keywords
map Europe flood hazard Mediterranean Sea
Data access
River flood hazard map of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin region - 50-year return period
Publications
- ELSEVIER SCI LTD, OXFORD, ENGLAND
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Abstract
At the current rate of global warming, the target of limiting it within 2 degrees by the end of the century seems more and more unrealistic. Policymakers, businesses and organizations leading international negotiations urge the scientific community to provide realistic and accurate assessments of the possible consequences of so called “high end” climate scenarios. This study illustrates a novel procedure to assess the future flood risk in Europe under high levels of warming. It combines ensemble projections of extreme streamflow for the current century based on EURO-CORDEX RCP 8.5 climate scenarios with recent advances in European flood hazard mapping. Proposed novelties include a threshold-based evaluation of extreme event magnitude and frequency, an alternative method to removing bias in climate projections, the latest pan-European exposure maps, and an improved flood vulnerability estimation. Estimates of population affected and direct flood damages indicate that by the end of the century the socio-economic impact of river floods in Europe is projected to increase by an average 220% due to climate change only. When coherent socio-economic development pathways are included in the assessment, central estimates of population annually affected by floods range between 500,000 and 640,000 in 2050, and between 540,000 and 950,000 in 2080, as compared to 216,000 in the current climate. A larger range is foreseen in the annual flood damage, currently of 5.3 B€, which is projected to rise at 20 to 40 B€ in 2050 and 30 to100 B€ in 2080, depending on the future economic growth.
Geographic areas
Europe Northern Africa Western Asia
Additional information
- Published by
- European Commission, Joint Research Centre
- Created date
- 2018-12-14
- Modified date
- 2020-11-11
- Issued date
- 2016-11-02
- Landing page
- https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/research-topic/floods
- Language(s)
- English
- Data theme(s)
- Environment, Science and technology
- Update frequency
- irregular
- Identifier
- http://data.europa.eu/89h/jrc-floods-floodmapeu_rp50y-tif
- Popularity
-