Bekić (2026) Loss of Life in River and Flash Floods in Europe: Evaluation of Deterministic Approaches and Implications for Risk Assessment

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Identification

• Journal: Water
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-04-23
• Authors: Damir Bekić
• DOI: 10.3390/w18091011

Research Groups

Not specified in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study evaluates deterministic flood fatality models using European data from 1980–2024, concluding that current models are inadequate for predicting flash flood fatalities despite their disproportionately high mortality rate.

Objective

• To quantify differences across flood fatality data sources and critically assess the applicability and robustness of deterministic prediction models for both river and flash floods.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Europe
• Temporal Scale: 1980–2024

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Damage–Fatality, Depth–Fatality, and Depth–Velocity–Fatality approaches.
• Data sources: HANZE database, EM-DAT, and detailed event-based studies.

Main Results

• Discrepancy between exposure and mortality: River floods account for 87% of the affected population and 71% of economic losses, whereas flash floods cause nearly 50% of all fatalities while affecting only 13% of the population.
• Model Performance: All evaluated models show significant limitations in predicting flash flood fatalities.
• Model Sensitivity: Single-parameter approaches perform poorly; multi-parameter models are highly sensitive to uncertainties in hydraulic input data.
• Transferability: Current deterministic methods are not transferable to flash flood conditions.

Contributions

• Provides the first systematic validation of widely used flood fatality models against a harmonised dataset of historical river and flash flood events.
• Offers a comprehensive assessment of model robustness and sensitivity regarding key input indicators.

Funding

Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Bekić2026Loss,
  author = {Bekić, Damir},
  title = {Loss of Life in River and Flash Floods in Europe: Evaluation of Deterministic Approaches and Implications for Risk Assessment},
  journal = {Water},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.3390/w18091011},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/w18091011}
}