Vidmar et al. (2025) Climate Change and the Escalating Cost of Floods: New Insights from Regional Risk Assessment Perspective

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Identification

• Journal: Climate
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-10-27
• Authors: Andrej Vidmar, Filmon Ghilay Ghebrebimichael, Simon Rusjan
• DOI: 10.3390/cli13110223

Research Groups

Not specified in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study evaluates the rising flood risk and damage potential in the lower Vipava River valley under various climate change scenarios, revealing that expected annual damage could more than double under the most extreme scenario, underscoring significant economic consequences.

Objective

• To evaluate the rising flood risk and damage potential in the lower Vipava River valley, a transboundary catchment between Slovenia and Italy, under climate scenarios RCP 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Lower Vipava River valley, a transboundary catchment between Slovenia and Italy.
• Temporal Scale: Current conditions and future conditions projected under climate scenarios RCP 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Hydraulic modeling, KRPAN model (for Expected Annual Damage estimation).
• Data sources: Climate scenarios (RCP 2.6, 4.5, 8.5) for future conditions; flood hazard zones identified through hydraulic modeling (implying topographic, hydrological, and land use data).

Main Results

• Expected Annual Damage (EAD) escalates from €0.97 million under current conditions to €1.97 million under the most extreme climate scenario (RCP 8.5).
• A 20% increase in flood peaks leads to a 1.4-fold increase in damage.
• A 40% increase in flood peaks results in more than double the losses.
• EAD for buildings shows a 2.5-fold increase under future conditions.
• EAD for water infrastructure rises by a factor of 1.9 under future conditions.

Contributions

• Quantifies the substantial economic consequences of climate change on flood risk in a specific transboundary catchment.
• Highlights the urgent necessity of integrating climate scenarios into flood risk assessments and spatial planning.
• Provides critical insights for informed decision-making and fostering long-term resilience in flood-prone areas.

Funding

Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Vidmar2025Climate,
  author = {Vidmar, Andrej and Ghebrebimichael, Filmon Ghilay and Rusjan, Simon},
  title = {Climate Change and the Escalating Cost of Floods: New Insights from Regional Risk Assessment Perspective},
  journal = {Climate},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3390/cli13110223},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/cli13110223}
}