TY  - JOUR
A1  - Farrag, Mostafa
A1  - Brill, Fabio Alexander
A1  - Nguyen, Viet Dung
A1  - Sairam, Nivedita
A1  - Schröter, Kai
A1  - Kreibich, Heidi
A1  - Merz, Bruno
A1  - de Bruijn, Karin M.
A1  - Vorogushyn, Sergiy
T1  - On the role of floodplain storage and hydrodynamic interactions in flood risk estimation
JF  - Hydrological sciences journal = Journal des sciences hydrologiques
N2  - Hydrodynamic interactions, i.e. the floodplain storage effects caused by inundations upstream on flood wave propagation, inundation areas, and flood damage downstream, are important but often ignored in large-scale flood risk assessments. Although new methods considering these effects sometimes emerge, they are often limited to a small or meso scale. In this study, we investigate the role of hydrodynamic interactions and floodplain storage on flood hazard and risk in the German part of the Rhine basin. To do so, we compare a new continuous 1D routing scheme within a flood risk model chain to the piece-wise routing scheme, which largely neglects floodplain storage. The results show that floodplain storage is significant, lowers water levels and discharges, and reduces risks by over 50%. Therefore, for accurate risk assessments, a system approach must be adopted, and floodplain storage and hydrodynamic interactions must carefully be considered.
KW  - hydrodynamic interactions
KW  - derived flood risk analysis
KW  - flood modelling;
KW  - Rhine basin
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2022.2030058
SN  - 0262-6667
SN  - 2150-3435
VL  - 67
IS  - 4
SP  - 508
EP  - 534
PB  - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY  - Abingdon
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kellermann, Patric
A1  - Schröter, Kai
A1  - Thieken, Annegret
A1  - Haubrock, Sören-Nils
A1  - Kreibich, Heidi
T1  - The object-specific flood damage database HOWAS 21
JF  - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
N2  - The Flood Damage Database HOWAS 21 contains object-specific flood damage data resulting from fluvial, pluvial and groundwater flooding. The datasets incorporate various variables of flood hazard, exposure, vulnerability and direct tangible damage at properties from several economic sectors. The main purpose of development of HOWAS 21 was to support forensic flood analysis and the derivation of flood damage models. HOWAS 21 was first developed for Germany and currently almost exclusively contains datasets from Germany. However, its scope has recently been enlarged with the aim to serve as an international flood damage database; e.g. its web application is now available in German and English. This paper presents the recent advancements of HOWAS 21 and highlights exemplary analyses to demonstrate the use of HOWAS 21 flood damage data. The data applications indicate a large potential of the database for fostering a better understanding and estimation of the consequences of flooding.
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2503-2020
SN  - 1561-8633
SN  - 1684-9981
VL  - 20
IS  - 9
SP  - 2503
EP  - 2519
PB  - Copernicus
CY  - Göttingen
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kreibich, Heidi
A1  - Botto, Anna
A1  - Merz, Bruno
A1  - Schröter, Kai
T1  - Probabilistic, Multivariable Flood Loss Modeling on the Mesoscale with BT-FLEMO
JF  - Risk analysis
N2  - Flood loss modeling is an important component for risk analyses and decision support in flood risk management. Commonly, flood loss models describe complex damaging processes by simple, deterministic approaches like depth-damage functions and are associated with large uncertainty. To improve flood loss estimation and to provide quantitative information about the uncertainty associated with loss modeling, a probabilistic, multivariable Bagging decision Tree Flood Loss Estimation MOdel (BT-FLEMO) for residential buildings was developed. The application of BT-FLEMO provides a probability distribution of estimated losses to residential buildings per municipality. BT-FLEMO was applied and validated at the mesoscale in 19 municipalities that were affected during the 2002 flood by the River Mulde in Saxony, Germany. Validation was undertaken on the one hand via a comparison with six deterministic loss models, including both depth-damage functions and multivariable models. On the other hand, the results were compared with official loss data. BT-FLEMO outperforms deterministic, univariable, and multivariable models with regard to model accuracy, although the prediction uncertainty remains high. An important advantage of BT-FLEMO is the quantification of prediction uncertainty. The probability distribution of loss estimates by BT-FLEMO well represents the variation range of loss estimates of the other models in the case study.
KW  - Damage modeling
KW  - multiparameter
KW  - probabilistic
KW  - uncertainty
KW  - validation
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12650
SN  - 0272-4332
SN  - 1539-6924
VL  - 37
IS  - 4
SP  - 774
EP  - 787
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kreibich, Heidi
A1  - Di Baldassarre, Giuliano
A1  - Vorogushyn, Sergiy
A1  - Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.
A1  - Apel, Heiko
A1  - Aronica, Giuseppe T.
A1  - Arnbjerg-Nielsen, Karsten
A1  - Bouwer, Laurens M.
A1  - Bubeck, Philip
A1  - Caloiero, Tommaso
A1  - Chinh, Do T.
A1  - Cortes, Maria
A1  - Gain, Animesh K.
A1  - Giampa, Vincenzo
A1  - Kuhlicke, Christian
A1  - Kundzewicz, Zbigniew W.
A1  - Llasat, Maria Carmen
A1  - Mard, Johanna
A1  - Matczak, Piotr
A1  - Mazzoleni, Maurizio
A1  - Molinari, Daniela
A1  - Dung, Nguyen V.
A1  - Petrucci, Olga
A1  - Schröter, Kai
A1  - Slager, Kymo
A1  - Thieken, Annegret
A1  - Ward, Philip J.
A1  - Merz, Bruno
T1  - Adaptation to flood risk
BT  - Results of international paired flood event studies
JF  - Earth's Future
N2  - As flood impacts are increasing in large parts of the world, understanding the primary drivers of changes in risk is essential for effective adaptation. To gain more knowledge on the basis of empirical case studies, we analyze eight paired floods, that is, consecutive flood events that occurred in the same region, with the second flood causing significantly lower damage. These success stories of risk reduction were selected across different socioeconomic and hydro-climatic contexts. The potential of societies to adapt is uncovered by describing triggered societal changes, as well as formal measures and spontaneous processes that reduced flood risk. This novel approach has the potential to build the basis for an international data collection and analysis effort to better understand and attribute changes in risk due to hydrological extremes in the framework of the IAHSs Panta Rhei initiative. Across all case studies, we find that lower damage caused by the second event was mainly due to significant reductions in vulnerability, for example, via raised risk awareness, preparedness, and improvements of organizational emergency management. Thus, vulnerability reduction plays an essential role for successful adaptation. Our work shows that there is a high potential to adapt, but there remains the challenge to stimulate measures that reduce vulnerability and risk in periods in which extreme events do not occur.
KW  - flooding
KW  - vulnerability
KW  - global environmental change
KW  - adaptation
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000606
SN  - 2328-4277
VL  - 5
SP  - 953
EP  - 965
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kreibich, Heidi
A1  - Müller, Meike
A1  - Schröter, Kai
A1  - Thieken, Annegret
T1  - New insights into flood warning reception and emergency response by affected parties
JF  - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
N2  - Flood damage can be mitigated if the parties at risk are reached by flood warnings and if they know how to react appropriately. To gain more knowledge about warning reception and emergency response of private households and companies, surveys were undertaken after the August 2002 and the June 2013 floods in Germany. Despite pronounced regional differences, the results show a clear overall picture: in 2002, early warnings did not work well; e.g. many households (27 %) and companies (45 %) stated that they had not received any flood warnings. Additionally, the preparedness of private households and companies was low in 2002, mainly due to a lack of flood experience. After the 2002 flood, many initiatives were launched and investments undertaken to improve flood risk management, including early warnings and an emergency response in Germany. In 2013, only a small share of the affected households (5 %) and companies (3 %) were not reached by any warnings. Additionally, private households and companies were better prepared. For instance, the share of companies which have an emergency plan in place has increased from 10% in 2002 to 34% in 2013. However, there is still room for improvement, which needs to be triggered mainly by effective risk and emergency communication. The challenge is to continuously maintain and advance an integrated early warning and emergency response system even without the occurrence of extreme floods.
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-2075-2017
SN  - 1561-8633
VL  - 17
SP  - 2075
EP  - 2092
PB  - Copernicus
CY  - Göttingen
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Kreibich, Heidi
A1  - Müller, Meike
A1  - Schröter, Kai
A1  - Thieken, Annegret
T1  - New insights into flood warning reception and emergency response by affected parties
T2  - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe
N2  - Flood damage can be mitigated if the parties at risk are reached by flood warnings and if they know how to react appropriately. To gain more knowledge about warning reception and emergency response of private households and companies, surveys were undertaken after the August 2002 and the June 2013 floods in Germany. Despite pronounced regional differences, the results show a clear overall picture: in 2002, early warnings did not work well; e.g. many households (27 %) and companies (45 %) stated that they had not received any flood warnings. Additionally, the preparedness of private households and companies was low in 2002, mainly due to a lack of flood experience. After the 2002 flood, many initiatives were launched and investments undertaken to improve flood risk management, including early warnings and an emergency response in Germany. In 2013, only a small share of the affected households (5 %) and companies (3 %) were not reached by any warnings. Additionally, private households and companies were better prepared. For instance, the share of companies which have an emergency plan in place has increased from 10% in 2002 to 34% in 2013. However, there is still room for improvement, which needs to be triggered mainly by effective risk and emergency communication. The challenge is to continuously maintain and advance an integrated early warning and emergency response system even without the occurrence of extreme floods.
T3  - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 659 
KW  - june 2013 Flood
KW  - circulation patterns
KW  - affected residents
KW  - extreme flood
KW  - august 2002
KW  - Germany
KW  - risk
KW  - damage
KW  - preparedness
KW  - recovery
Y1  - 2019
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-418381
SN  - 1866-8372
IS  - 659
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Merz, Bruno
A1  - Apel, Heiko
A1  - Dung Nguyen, Viet-Dung
A1  - Falter, Daniela
A1  - Guse, Björn
A1  - Hundecha, Yeshewatesfa
A1  - Kreibich, Heidi
A1  - Schröter, Kai
A1  - Vorogushyn, Sergiy
T1  - From precipitation to damage
BT  - a coupled model chain for spatially coherent, large-scale flood risk assessment
JF  - Global flood hazard : applications in modeling, mapping and forecasting
N2  - Flood risk assessments for large river basins often involve piecing together smaller-scale assessments leading to erroneous risk statements. We describe a coupled model chain for quantifying flood risk at the scale of 100,000 km(2). It consists of a catchment model, a 1D-2D river network model, and a loss model. We introduce the model chain and present two applications. The first application for the Elbe River basin with an area of 66,000 km(2) demonstrates that it is feasible to simulate the complete risk chain for large river basins in a continuous simulation mode with high temporal and spatial resolution. In the second application, RFM is coupled to a multisite weather generator and applied to the Mulde catchment with an area of 6,000 km(2). This approach is able to provide a very long time series of spatially heterogeneous patterns of precipitation, discharge, inundation, and damage. These patterns respect the spatial correlation of the different processes and are suitable to derive large-scale risk estimates. We discuss how the RFM approach can be transferred to the continental scale.
Y1  - 2018
SN  - 978-1-119-21788-6
SN  - 978-1-119-21786-2
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119217886.ch10
SN  - 0065-8448
VL  - 233
SP  - 169
EP  - 183
PB  - American Geophysical Union
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Merz, Bruno
A1  - Kuhlicke, Christian
A1  - Kunz, Michael
A1  - Pittore, Massimiliano
A1  - Babeyko, Andrey
A1  - Bresch, David N.
A1  - Domeisen, Daniela I.
A1  - Feser, Frauke
A1  - Koszalka, Inga
A1  - Kreibich, Heidi
A1  - Pantillon, Florian
A1  - Parolai, Stefano
A1  - Pinto, Joaquim G.
A1  - Punge, Heinz Jürgen
A1  - Rivalta, Eleonora
A1  - Schröter, Kai
A1  - Strehlow, Karen
A1  - Weisse, Ralf
A1  - Wurpts, Andreas
T1  - Impact forecasting to support emergency management of natural hazards
JF  - Reviews of geophysics
N2  - Forecasting and early warning systems are important investments to protect lives, properties, and livelihood. While early warning systems are frequently used to predict the magnitude, location, and timing of potentially damaging events, these systems rarely provide impact estimates, such as the expected amount and distribution of physical damage, human consequences, disruption of services, or financial loss. Complementing early warning systems with impact forecasts has a twofold advantage: It would provide decision makers with richer information to take informed decisions about emergency measures and focus the attention of different disciplines on a common target. This would allow capitalizing on synergies between different disciplines and boosting the development of multihazard early warning systems. This review discusses the state of the art in impact forecasting for a wide range of natural hazards. We outline the added value of impact-based warnings compared to hazard forecasting for the emergency phase, indicate challenges and pitfalls, and synthesize the review results across hazard types most relevant for Europe.
KW  - impact forecasting
KW  - natural hazards
KW  - early warning
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1029/2020RG000704
SN  - 8755-1209
SN  - 1944-9208
VL  - 58
IS  - 4
PB  - American Geophysical Union
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Merz, Bruno
A1  - Nguyen, Viet Dung
A1  - Apel, Heiko
A1  - Gerlitz, Lars
A1  - Schröter, Kai
A1  - Steirou, Eva Styliani
A1  - Vorogushyn, Sergiy
T1  - Spatial coherence of flood-rich and flood-poor periods across Germany
JF  - Journal of hydrology
N2  - Despite its societal relevance, the question whether fluctuations in flood occurrence or magnitude are coherent in space has hardly been addressed in quantitative terms. We investigate this question for Germany by analysing fluctuations in annual maximum series (AMS) values at 68 discharge gauges for the common time period 1932-2005. We find remarkable spatial coherence across Germany given its different flood regimes. For example, there is a tendency that flood-rich/-poor years in sub-catchments of the Rhine basin, which are dominated by winter floods, coincide with flood-rich/-poor years in the southern sub-catchments of the Danube basin, which have their dominant flood season in summer. Our findings indicate that coherence is caused rather by persistence in catchment wetness than by persistent periods of higher/lower event precipitation. Further, we propose to differentiate between event-type and non-event-type coherence. There are quite a number of hydrological years with considerable nonevent-type coherence, i.e. AMS values of the 68 gauges are spread out through the year but in the same magnitude range. Years with extreme flooding tend to be of event-type and non-coherent, i.e. there is at least one precipitation event that affects many catchments to various degree. Although spatial coherence is a remarkable phenomenon, and large-scale flooding across Germany can lead to severe situations, extreme magnitudes across the whole country within one event or within one year were not observed in the investigated period. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
KW  - Flood timing
KW  - Spatial coherence
KW  - Flood regimes
KW  - Climate variability
KW  - Catchment wetness
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.02.082
SN  - 0022-1694
SN  - 1879-2707
VL  - 559
SP  - 813
EP  - 826
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Metin, Ayse Duha
A1  - Dung, Nguyen Viet
A1  - Schröter, Kai
A1  - Guse, Björn
A1  - Apel, Heiko
A1  - Kreibich, Heidi
A1  - Vorogushyn, Sergiy
A1  - Merz, Bruno
T1  - How do changes along the risk chain affect flood risk?
T2  - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe
N2  - Flood risk is impacted by a range of physical and socio-economic processes. Hence, the quantification of flood risk ideally considers the complete flood risk chain, from atmospheric processes through catchment and river system processes to damage mechanisms in the affected areas. Although it is generally accepted that a multitude of changes along the risk chain can occur and impact flood risk, there is a lack of knowledge of how and to what extent changes in influencing factors propagate through the chain and finally affect flood risk. To fill this gap, we present a comprehensive sensitivity analysis which considers changes in all risk components, i.e. changes in climate, catchment, river system, land use, assets, and vulnerability. The application of this framework to the mesoscale Mulde catchment in Germany shows that flood risk can vary dramatically as a consequence of plausible change scenarios. It further reveals that components that have not received much attention, such as changes in dike systems or in vulnerability, may outweigh changes in often investigated components, such as climate. Although the specific results are conditional on the case study area and the selected assumptions, they emphasize the need for a broader consideration of potential drivers of change in a comprehensive way. Hence, our approach contributes to a better understanding of how the different risk components influence the overall flood risk.
T3  - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1067 
KW  - global sensitivity analysis
KW  - climate change
KW  - river floods
KW  - frequency
KW  - Europe
KW  - model
KW  - vulnerability
KW  - adaptation
KW  - strategies
KW  - catchment
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-468790
SN  - 1866-8372
IS  - 1067
ER  -