TY - JOUR
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Falter, Daniela
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Zusammenwirken von staatlicher und privater Vorsorge
BT - Fallstudie Mulde
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 110
EP - 120
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Pech, Ina
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Warnung und Reaktion aus Sicht von Betroffenen
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 138
EP - 142
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
T1 - Vorhersagen und Warnungen im Mai / Juni 2013
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 132
EP - 137
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - RPRT
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Dierck, Julia
A1 - Dunst, Lea
A1 - Göpfert, Christian
A1 - Heidenreich, Anna
A1 - Hetz, Karen
A1 - Kern, Julia
A1 - Kern, Kristine
A1 - Lipp, Torsten
A1 - Lippert, Cordine
A1 - Meves, Monika
A1 - Niederhafner, Stefan
A1 - Otto, Antje
A1 - Rohrbacher, Christian
A1 - Schmidt, Katja
A1 - Strate, Leander
A1 - Stumpp, Inga
A1 - Walz, Ariane
T1 - Urbane Resilienz gegenüber extremen Wetterereignissen – Typologien und Transfer von Anpassungsstrategien in kleinen Großstädten und Mittelstädten (ExTrass)
BT - Verbundvorhaben „Zukunftsstadt“ (Definitionsprojekt)
N2 - Weltweit verursachen Städte etwa 70 % der Treibhausgasemissionen und sind daher wichtige Akteure im Klimaschutz bzw. eine wichtige Zielgruppe von Klimapolitiken. Gleichzeitig sind Städte besonders stark von möglichen Auswirkungen des Klimawandels betroffen: Insbesondere extreme Wetterereignisse wie Hitzewellen oder Starkregenereignisse mit Überflutungen verursachen in Städten hohe Sachschäden und wirken sich negativ auf die Gesundheit der städtischen Bevölkerung aus. Daher verfolgt das Projekt ExTrass das Ziel, die städtische Resilienz gegenüber extremen Wetterereignissen in enger Zusammenarbeit mit Stadtverwaltungen, Strukturen des Bevölkerungsschutzes und der Zivilgesellschaft zu stärken. Im Fokus stehen dabei (kreisfreie) Groß- und Mittelstädte mit 50.000 bis 500.000 Einwohnern, insbesondere die Fallstudienstädte Potsdam, Remscheid und Würzburg.
Der vorliegende Bericht beinhaltet die Ergebnisse der 14-monatigen Definitionsphase von ExTrass, in der vor allem die Abstimmung eines Arbeitsprogramms im Mittelpunkt stand, das in einem nachfolgenden dreijährigen Forschungsprojekt (F+E-Phase) gemeinsam von Wissenschaft und Praxispartnern umgesetzt werden soll. Begleitend wurde eine Bestandsaufnahme von Klimaanpassungs- und Klimaschutzstrategien/-plänen in 99 deutschen Groß- und Mittelstädten vorgenommen. Zudem wurden für Potsdam und Würzburg Pfadanalysen für die Klimapolitik durchgeführt. Darin wird insbesondere die Bedeutung von Schlüsselakteuren deutlich. Weiterhin wurden im Rahmen von Stakeholder-Workshops Anpassungsherausforderungen und aktuelle Handlungsbedarfe in den Fallstudienstädten identifiziert und Lösungsansätze erarbeitet, die in der F+E-Phase entwickelt und getestet werden sollen. Neben Maßnahmen auf gesamtstädtischer Ebene und auf Stadtteilebene wurden Maßnahmen angestrebt, die die Risikowahrnehmung, Vorsorge und Selbsthilfefähigkeit von Unternehmen und Bevölkerung stärken können. Daher wurde der Stand der Risikokommunikation in Deutschland für das Projekt aufgearbeitet und eine erste Evaluation von Risikokommunikationswerkzeugen durchgeführt. Der Bericht endet mit einer Kurzfassung des Arbeitsprogramms 2018-2021.
N2 - Cities are responsible for around 70 % of the global greenhouse gas emissions and are hence important for climate mitigation; consequently they are a crucial target group of climate policies. At the same time, cities are also severely affected by potential impacts of climate change: extreme weather events such as heat waves or heavy precipitation (pluvial floods) cause high economic losses in urban areas and have adverse effects on the health of the urban population. Therefore, the project ExTrass is aimed at measurably enhancing cities’ resilience against extreme weather events jointly with representatives of urban administrations, disaster assistance and civil society. The project focusses on small metropolises and medium-sized cities with 50,000 to 500,000 inhabitants, in particular on the case study cities of Potsdam, Remscheid and Würzburg.
The report summarizes the results of a 14-month definition phase whose main purpose was to define the research program of the successive 3-year-R+D-project, to be implemented jointly by researchers and practitioners. In addition, an inventory of climate change adaptation and climate mitigation strategies and plans of 99 German metropolises and medium-sized cities was created. Moreover, an in-depth analysis of the pathways of climate policies in the cities of Potsdam and Würzburg was conducted, which particularly revealed the relevance of key personalities. Furthermore, current challenges in climate adaptation and needs for action were identified during stakeholder workshops in the case study cities. In addition, possible solutions were discussed which will be implemented and tested during the R+D-project. Besides measures on the city level and on the level of urban districts, options that improve risk awareness, preparedness and coping capacities of enterprises and residents are strived for. Thus the state-of-the-art of risk communication in Germany was reviewed for the project and a first evaluation of a serious game was performed. The report ends with a brief outline of the work program 2018-2021.
KW - Klimaanpassung
KW - Klimaschutz
KW - Pfadanalysen
KW - Stadtentwicklung
KW - Hitze
KW - Starkregen
KW - Risikokommunikation
KW - Potsdam
KW - Würzburg
KW - Deutschland
KW - Climate Adaptation
KW - Climate Mitigation
KW - analysis of pathways
KW - urban development
KW - heat
KW - pluvial flooding
KW - risk communication
KW - city of Potsdam
KW - city of Wuerzburg
KW - Germany
Y1 - 2018
U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-416067
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Kox, Thomas
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - To act or not to act? Factors influencing the general public's decision about Whether to Take Protective Action against Severe Weather
JF - Weather, climate & society
N2 - Research suggests that providing weather forecast end users with additional information about the forecast uncertainty of a possible event can enhance the preparation of mitigation measures. But not all users have the same threshold for taking action. This paper focuses on the question of whether there are influencing factors that determine decision thresholds for numerical weather forecast information beginning at which the general public would start to take protective action. In spring 2014, 1342 residents of Berlin, Germany participated in a survey. Questions related to the following topics: perception of and prior experience with severe weather, trustworthiness of forecasters and confidence in weather forecasts, and sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Within the questionnaire a scenario was created in order to determine individual decision thresholds and see whether subgroups of the sample lead to different thresholds.
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-15-0078.1
SN - 1948-8327
SN - 1948-8335
VL - 9
SP - 299
EP - 315
PB - American Meteorological Soc.
CY - Boston
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Koc, Gamze
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - The relevance of flood hazards and impacts in Turkey
BT - what can be learned from different disaster loss databases?
JF - Natural hazards : journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
N2 - Turkey has been severely affected by many natural hazards, in particular earthquakes and floods. Especially over the last two decades, these natural hazards have caused enormous human and economic damage. Although there is a large body of literature on earthquake hazards and risks in Turkey, comparatively little is known about flood hazards and risks. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the severity of flooding in comparison with other natural hazards in Turkey and to analyse the flood patterns by providing an overview of the temporal and spatial distribution of flood losses. These will act as a metric for the societal and economic impacts of flood hazards in Turkey. For this purpose, Turkey Disaster Database (TABB) was used for the years 1960-2014. As input for more detailed event analyses, the most severe flood events in Turkey for the same time interval will also be retrieved. Sufficiency of the TABB database to achieve the main aim of the study in terms of data quality and accuracy was also discussed. The TABB database was analysed and reviewed through comparison, mainly with the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT), the Global Active Archive of Large Flood Events-Dartmouth Flood Observatory database, news archives and the scientific literature, with a focus on listing the most severe flood event. The comparative review of these data sources reveals big mismatches in the flood data, i.e. the reported number of events, number of affected people and economic loss all differ dramatically. Owing to the fact that the TABB is the only disaster loss database for Turkey, it is important to explore the reasons for the mismatches between TABB and the other sources with regard to aspects of accuracy and data quality. Therefore, biases and fallacies in the TABB loss data are also discussed. The comparative TABB database analyses show that large mismatches between global and national databases can occur. Current global and national databases for monitoring losses from national hazards suffer from a number of limitations, which in turn could lead to misinterpretations of the loss data. Since loss data collection is gaining more and more attention, e.g. in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, this study offers a framework for developing guidelines for the Turkey Disaster Database (TABB), implications on how to standardize national loss databases and implement across the other hazard events in Turkey.
KW - Historic natural hazards
KW - Floods
KW - Disaster loss databases
KW - Flood impacts
KW - Turkey
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-3134-6
SN - 0921-030X
SN - 1573-0840
VL - 91
IS - 1
SP - 375
EP - 408
PB - Springer
CY - New York
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Bessel, Tina
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Mueller, Meike
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
A1 - Schroeter, Kai
T1 - The flood of June 2013 in Germany: how much do we know about its
impacts?
JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
N2 - In June 2013, widespread flooding and consequent damage and losses occurred in Central Europe, especially in Germany. This paper explores what data are available to investigate the adverse impacts of the event, what kind of information can be retrieved from these data and how well data and information fulfil requirements that were recently proposed for disaster reporting on the European and international levels. In accordance with the European Floods Directive (2007/60/EC), impacts on human health, economic activities (and assets), cultural heritage and the environment are described on the national and sub-national scale. Information from governmental reports is complemented by communications on traffic disruptions and surveys of flood-affected residents and companies.
Overall, the impacts of the flood event in 2013 were manifold. The study reveals that flood-affected residents suffered from a large range of impacts, among which mental health and supply problems were perceived more seriously than financial losses. The most frequent damage type among affected companies was business interruption. This demonstrates that the current scientific focus on direct (financial) damage is insufficient to describe the overall impacts and severity of flood events.
The case further demonstrates that procedures and standards for impact data collection in Germany are widely missing. Present impact data in Germany are fragmentary, heterogeneous, incomplete and difficult to access. In order to fulfil, for example, the monitoring and reporting requirements of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 that was adopted in March 2015 in Sendai, Japan, more efforts on impact data collection are needed.
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-1519-2016
SN - 1561-8633
VL - 16
SP - 1519
EP - 1540
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -
TY - GEN
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Bessel, Tina
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Müller, Meike
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
A1 - Schröter, Kai
T1 - The flood of June 2013 in Germany
BT - how much do we know about its impacts?
T2 - National Hazards Earth System Science
N2 - In June 2013, widespread flooding and consequent damage and losses occurred in Central Europe, especially in Germany. This paper explores what data are available to investigate the adverse impacts of the event, what kind of information can be retrieved from these data and how well data and information fulfil requirements that were recently proposed for disaster reporting on the European and international levels. In accordance with the European Floods Directive (2007/60/EC), impacts on human health, economic activities (and assets), cultural heritage and the environment are described on the national and sub-national scale. Information from governmental reports is complemented by communications on traffic disruptions and surveys of flood-affected residents and companies.
Overall, the impacts of the flood event in 2013 were manifold. The study reveals that flood-affected residents suffered from a large range of impacts, among which mental health and supply problems were perceived more seriously than financial losses. The most frequent damage type among affected companies was business interruption. This demonstrates that the current scientific focus on direct (financial) damage is insufficient to describe the overall impacts and severity of flood events.
The case further demonstrates that procedures and standards for impact data collection in Germany are widely missing. Present impact data in Germany are fragmentary, heterogeneous, incomplete and difficult to access. In order to fulfil, for example, the monitoring and reporting requirements of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 that was adopted in March 2015 in Sendai, Japan, more efforts on impact data collection are needed.
Y1 - 2016
U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-97207
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Bessel, Tina
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Müller, Meike
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
A1 - Schröter, Kai
T1 - The flood of June 2013 in Germany
BT - how much do we know about its impacts?
JF - National Hazards Earth System Science
N2 - In June 2013, widespread flooding and consequent damage and losses occurred in Central Europe, especially in Germany. This paper explores what data are available to investigate the adverse impacts of the event, what kind of information can be retrieved from these data and how well data and information fulfil requirements that were recently proposed for disaster reporting on the European and international levels. In accordance with the European Floods Directive (2007/60/EC), impacts on human health, economic activities (and assets), cultural heritage and the environment are described on the national and sub-national scale. Information from governmental reports is complemented by communications on traffic disruptions and surveys of flood-affected residents and companies.
Overall, the impacts of the flood event in 2013 were manifold. The study reveals that flood-affected residents suffered from a large range of impacts, among which mental health and supply problems were perceived more seriously than financial losses. The most frequent damage type among affected companies was business interruption. This demonstrates that the current scientific focus on direct (financial) damage is insufficient to describe the overall impacts and severity of flood events.
The case further demonstrates that procedures and standards for impact data collection in Germany are widely missing. Present impact data in Germany are fragmentary, heterogeneous, incomplete and difficult to access. In order to fulfil, for example, the monitoring and reporting requirements of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 that was adopted in March 2015 in Sendai, Japan, more efforts on impact data collection are needed.
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-1519-2016
IS - 16
SP - 1519
EP - 1540
PB - Copernicus Publications
CY - Göttingen
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Bouwer, Laurens M.
A1 - Papyrakis, Elissaios
A1 - Poussin, Jennifer
A1 - Pfurtscheller, Clemens
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - The costing of measures for natural hazard mitigation in Europe
JF - Natural hazards review
N2 - The literature on the costing of mitigation measures for reducing impacts of natural hazards is rather fragmented. This paper provides a concise overview of the current state of knowledge in Europe on the costing of mitigation measures for the reduction of natural hazard risks (droughts, floods, storms and induced coastal hazards as well as alpine hazards) and identifies knowledge gaps and related research recommendations. Furthermore, it provides a taxonomy of related mitigation options, classifying them into nine categories: (1) management plans, land-use planning, and climate adaptation; (2) hazard modification; (3) infrastructure; (4) mitigation measures (stricto sensu); (5) communication in advance of events; (6) monitoring and early warning systems; (7) emergency response and evacuation; (8) financial incentives; and (9) risk transfer (including insurance). It is found that the costing of mitigation measures in European and in other countries has almost exclusively focused on estimating direct costs. A cost assessment framework that addresses a range of costs, possibly informed by multiple stakeholders, would provide more accurate estimates and could provide better guidance to decision makers. (C) 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
KW - Natural hazards
KW - Mitigation
KW - Costs
KW - Adaptation
KW - Risk reduction
KW - Floods
KW - Droughts
KW - Coastal hazards
KW - Alpine hazards
Y1 - 2014
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000133
SN - 1527-6988
SN - 1527-6996
VL - 15
IS - 4
PB - American Society of Civil Engineers
CY - Reston
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Riese, Miriam
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Müggenburg, Eva
A1 - Bubeck, Philip
T1 - Synergies and barriers of the possible integration of heavy rainfall for the implementation of the European Floods Directive
JF - Hydrologie und Wasserbewirtschaftung
N2 - The heavy rainfall events in recent years have caused great damage, which has increased the public awareness of the topic of heavy rainfall. For this reason, this article discusses how a systematic integration of heavy rainfall within the framework of the European Floods Directive would be possible and reasonable. For this purpose, a matrix covering possible synergies and barriers was created for all steps of the directive, which were then examined in 15 semi-structured interviews with representatives from specialized administration, the private sector and academia. Although there are some synergies, the additional effort required, especially regarding the identification of the risk areas and the higher level of detail required for risk modeling, would be so high that the European Floods Directive cannot be deemed to be an appropriate framework for heavy rainfall risk management. Nevertheless, there is a need for action, e.g. in the field of self-protection, improved risk communication to the population, combined with increased public and interagency cooperation.
T2 - Synergien und Hemmnisse einer möglichen Integration von Starkregen in die Bearbeitung der europäischen Hochwasserrisikomanagementrichtlinie
KW - Flood
KW - heavy rainfall
KW - EU Floods Directive
KW - Federal Water Act
KW - Hochwasser
KW - Starkregen
KW - Hochwasserrisikomanagementrichtlinie
KW - Wasserhaushaltsgesetz
Y1 - 2019
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5675/HyWa_2019.4_1
SN - 1439-1783
VL - 63
IS - 4
SP - 193
EP - 202
PB - Bundesanst. für Gewässerkunde
CY - Koblenz
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Cammerer, Holger
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Verburg, Peter H.
T1 - Spatio-temporal dynamics in the flood exposure due to land use changes in the Alpine Lech Valley in Tyrol (Austria)
JF - Natural hazards : journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
N2 - Flood risk is expected to increase in many regions of the world in the next decades with rising flood losses as a consequence. First and foremost, it can be attributed to the expansion of settlement and industrial areas into flood plains and the resulting accumulation of assets. For a future-oriented and a more robust flood risk management, it is therefore of importance not only to estimate potential impacts of climate change on the flood hazard, but also to analyze the spatio-temporal dynamics of flood exposure due to land use changes. In this study, carried out in the Alpine Lech Valley in Tyrol (Austria), various land use scenarios until 2030 were developed by means of a spatially explicit land use model, national spatial planning scenarios and current spatial policies. The combination of the simulated land use patterns with different inundation scenarios enabled us to derive statements about possible future changes in flood-exposed built-up areas. The results indicate that the potential assets at risk depend very much on the selected socioeconomic scenario. The important conditions affecting the potential assets at risk that differ between the scenarios are the demand for new built-up areas as well as on the types of conversions allowed to provide the necessary areas at certain locations. The range of potential changes in flood-exposed residential areas varies from no further change in the most moderate scenario 'Overall Risk' to 119 % increase in the most extreme scenario 'Overall Growth' (under current spatial policy) and 159 % increase when disregarding current building restrictions.
KW - Flood risk
KW - Land use change
KW - Spatial policy
KW - Socioeconomic scenarios
KW - Mountain basins
Y1 - 2013
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-012-0280-8
SN - 0921-030X
VL - 68
IS - 3
SP - 1243
EP - 1270
PB - Springer
CY - New York
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Schröder, Kai
A1 - Hasan, Issa
A1 - Falter, Daniela
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Schutz und Entlastung von hochwassergefährdeten Gebieten
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 76
EP - 91
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Otto, Antje
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
A1 - Petrow, Theresia
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Kuhlicke, Christian
A1 - Schröter, Kai
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Müller, Meike
T1 - Schlussfolgerungen und Empfehlungen
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 184
EP - 196
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Pech, Ina
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Risikowahrnehmung, Risikokommunikation und Entwicklung der Eigenversorg von Betroffenen
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 99
EP - 110
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Pech, Ina
T1 - Risikovorsorge und Wiederaufbau
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 170
EP - 183
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - GEN
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Kuhlicke, Christian
A1 - Kunz, Michael
A1 - Mühr, Bernhard
A1 - Müller, Meike
A1 - Otto, Antje
A1 - Petrow, Theresia
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
A1 - Schröter, Kai
T1 - Review of the flood risk management system in Germany after the major flood in 2013
N2 - Widespread flooding in June 2013 caused damage costs of €6 to 8 billion in Germany, and awoke many memories of the floods in August 2002, which resulted in total damage of €11.6 billion and hence was the most expensive natural hazard event in Germany up to now. The event of 2002 does, however, also mark a reorientation toward an integrated flood risk management system in Germany. Therefore, the flood of 2013 offered the opportunity to review how the measures that politics, administration, and civil society have implemented since 2002 helped to cope with the flood and what still needs to be done to achieve effective and more integrated flood risk management. The review highlights considerable improvements on many levels, in particular (1) an increased consideration of flood hazards in spatial planning and urban development, (2) comprehensive property-level mitigation and preparedness measures, (3) more effective flood warnings and improved coordination of disaster response, and (4) a more targeted maintenance of flood defense systems. In 2013, this led to more effective flood management and to a reduction of damage. Nevertheless, important aspects remain unclear and need to be clarified. This particularly holds for balanced and coordinated strategies for reducing and overcoming the impacts of flooding in large catchments, cross-border and interdisciplinary cooperation, the role of the general public in the different phases of flood risk management, as well as a transparent risk transfer system. Recurring flood events reveal that flood risk management is a continuous task. Hence, risk drivers, such as climate change, land-use changes, economic developments, or demographic change and the resultant risks must be investigated at regular intervals, and risk reduction strategies and processes must be reassessed as well as adapted and implemented in a dialogue with all stakeholders.
T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 294
KW - August 2002 flood
KW - Central Europe
KW - Floods Directive
KW - June 2013 flood
KW - governance
KW - risk management cycle
Y1 - 2016
U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-100600
SN - 1866-8372
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Kuhlicke, Christian
A1 - Kunz, Michael
A1 - Mühr, Bernhard
A1 - Müller, Meike
A1 - Otto, Antje
A1 - Petrow, Theresia
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
A1 - Schröter, Kai
T1 - Review of the flood risk management system in Germany after the major flood in 2013
JF - Ecology and society : E&S ; a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability
N2 - Widespread flooding in June 2013 caused damage costs of €6 to 8 billion in Germany, and awoke many memories of the floods in August 2002, which resulted in total damage of €11.6 billion and hence was the most expensive natural hazard event in Germany up to now. The event of 2002 does, however, also mark a reorientation toward an integrated flood risk management system in Germany. Therefore, the flood of 2013 offered the opportunity to review how the measures that politics, administration, and civil society have implemented since 2002 helped to cope with the flood and what still needs to be done to achieve effective and more integrated flood risk management. The review highlights considerable improvements on many levels, in particular (1) an increased consideration of flood hazards in spatial planning and urban development, (2) comprehensive property-level mitigation and preparedness measures, (3) more effective flood warnings and improved coordination of disaster response, and (4) a more targeted maintenance of flood defense systems. In 2013, this led to more effective flood management and to a reduction of damage. Nevertheless, important aspects remain unclear and need to be clarified. This particularly holds for balanced and coordinated strategies for reducing and overcoming the impacts of flooding in large catchments, cross-border and interdisciplinary cooperation, the role of the general public in the different phases of flood risk management, as well as a transparent risk transfer system. Recurring flood events reveal that flood risk management is a continuous task. Hence, risk drivers, such as climate change, land-use changes, economic developments, or demographic change and the resultant risks must be investigated at regular intervals, and risk reduction strategies and processes must be reassessed as well as adapted and implemented in a dialogue with all stakeholders.
KW - August 2002 flood
KW - Central Europe
KW - Floods Directive
KW - governance
KW - June 2013 flood
KW - risk management cycle
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08547-210251
SN - 1708-3087
SN - 1195-5449
VL - 21
IS - 2
PB - Resilience Alliance
CY - Wolfville, NS
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Kuhlicke, Christian
A1 - Kunz, Michael
A1 - Muehr, Bernhard
A1 - Mueller, Meike
A1 - Otto, Antje
A1 - Petrow, Theresia
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
A1 - Schroeter, Kai
T1 - Review of the flood risk management system in Germany after the major flood in 2013
JF - Ecology and society : a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability
N2 - Widespread flooding in June 2013 caused damage costs of (sic)6 to 8 billion in Germany, and awoke many memories of the floods in August 2002, which resulted in total damage of (sic)11.6 billion and hence was the most expensive natural hazard event in Germany up to now. The event of 2002 does, however, also mark a reorientation toward an integrated flood risk management system in Germany. Therefore, the flood of 2013 offered the opportunity to review how the measures that politics, administration, and civil society have implemented since 2002 helped to cope with the flood and what still needs to be done to achieve effective and more integrated flood risk management. The review highlights considerable improvements on many levels, in particular (1) an increased consideration of flood hazards in spatial planning and urban development, (2) comprehensive property-level mitigation and preparedness measures, (3) more effective flood warnings and improved coordination of disaster response, and (4) a more targeted maintenance of flood defense systems. In 2013, this led to more effective flood management and to a reduction of damage. Nevertheless, important aspects remain unclear and need to be clarified. This particularly holds for balanced and coordinated strategies for reducing and overcoming the impacts of flooding in large catchments, cross-border and interdisciplinary cooperation, the role of the general public in the different phases of flood risk management, as well as a transparent risk transfer system. Recurring flood events reveal that flood risk management is a continuous task. Hence, risk drivers, such as climate change, land-use changes, economic developments, or demographic change and the resultant risks must be investigated at regular intervals, and risk reduction strategies and processes must be reassessed as well as adapted and implemented in a dialogue with all stakeholders.
KW - August 2002 flood
KW - Central Europe
KW - Floods Directive
KW - governance
KW - June 2013 flood
KW - risk management cycle
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08547-210251
SN - 1708-3087
VL - 21
SP - 8612
EP - 8614
PB - Resilience Alliance
CY - Wolfville
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Korup, Oliver
T1 - Residential flood loss estimated from Bayesian multilevel models
JF - Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
N2 - Models for the predictions of monetary losses from floods mainly blend data deemed to represent a single flood type and region. Moreover, these approaches largely ignore indicators of preparedness and how predictors may vary between regions and events, challenging the transferability of flood loss models. We use a flood loss database of 1812 German flood-affected households to explore how Bayesian multilevel models can estimate normalised flood damage stratified by event, region, or flood process type. Multilevel models acknowledge natural groups in the data and allow each group to learn from others. We obtain posterior estimates that differ between flood types, with credibly varying influences of water depth, contamination, duration, implementation of property-level precautionary measures, insurance, and previous flood experience; these influences overlap across most events or regions, however. We infer that the underlying damaging processes of distinct flood types deserve further attention. Each reported flood loss and affected region involved mixed flood types, likely explaining the uncertainty in the coefficients. Our results emphasise the need to consider flood types as an important step towards applying flood loss models elsewhere. We argue that failing to do so may unduly generalise the model and systematically bias loss estimations from empirical data.
KW - damage
KW - insurance
KW - Germany
KW - transferability
KW - preparedness
KW - recovery
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1599-2021
SN - 2195-9269
VL - 21
SP - 1599
EP - 1614
PB - European Geophysical Society
CY - Katlenburg-Lindau
ER -
TY - GEN
A1 - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Korup, Oliver
T1 - Residential flood loss estimated from Bayesian multilevel models
T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe
N2 - Models for the predictions of monetary losses from floods mainly blend data deemed to represent a single flood type and region. Moreover, these approaches largely ignore indicators of preparedness and how predictors may vary between regions and events, challenging the transferability of flood loss models. We use a flood loss database of 1812 German flood-affected households to explore how Bayesian multilevel models can estimate normalised flood damage stratified by event, region, or flood process type. Multilevel models acknowledge natural groups in the data and allow each group to learn from others. We obtain posterior estimates that differ between flood types, with credibly varying influences of water depth, contamination, duration, implementation of property-level precautionary measures, insurance, and previous flood experience; these influences overlap across most events or regions, however. We infer that the underlying damaging processes of distinct flood types deserve further attention. Each reported flood loss and affected region involved mixed flood types, likely explaining the uncertainty in the coefficients. Our results emphasise the need to consider flood types as an important step towards applying flood loss models elsewhere. We argue that failing to do so may unduly generalise the model and systematically bias loss estimations from empirical data.
T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1148
KW - damage
KW - insurance
KW - Germany
KW - transferability
KW - preparedness
KW - recovery
Y1 - 2021
U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-517743
SN - 1866-8372
SP - 1599
EP - 1614
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Surminski, Swenja
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Promoting flood risk reduction
BT - the role of insurance in Germany and England
JF - Earth's Future
N2 - Improving society's ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from flooding requires integrated, anticipatory flood risk management (FRM). However, most countries still focus their efforts on responding to flooding events if and when they occur rather than addressing their current and future vulnerability to flooding. Flood insurance is one mechanism that could promote a more ex ante approach to risk by supporting risk reduction activities. This paper uses an adapted version of Easton's System Theory to investigate the role of insurance for FRM in Germany and England. We introduce an anticipatory FRM framework, which allows flood insurance to be considered as part of a broader policy field. We analyze if and how flood insurance can catalyze a change toward a more anticipatory approach to FRM. In particular we consider insurance's role in influencing five key components of anticipatory FRM: risk knowledge, prevention through better planning, property‐level protection measures, structural protection and preparedness (for response). We find that in both countries FRM is still a reactive, event‐driven process, while anticipatory FRM remains underdeveloped. Collaboration between insurers and FRM decision‐makers has already been successful, for example in improving risk knowledge and awareness, while in other areas insurance acts as a disincentive for more risk reduction action. In both countries there is evidence that insurance can play a significant role in encouraging anticipatory FRM, but this remains underutilized. Effective collaboration between insurers and government should not be seen as a cost, but as an investment to secure future insurability through flood resilience.
KW - flooding
KW - insurance
KW - governance
KW - risk reduction
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000587
SN - 2328-4277
VL - 5
SP - 979
EP - 1001
PB - Wiley
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - INPR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Mariani, S.
A1 - Longfield, S.
A1 - Vanneuville, W.
T1 - Preface: Flood resilient communities - managing the consequences of flooding
T2 - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
Y1 - 2014
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-14-33-2014
SN - 1561-8633
VL - 14
IS - 1
SP - 33
EP - 39
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
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 - JOUR
A1 - Kellermann, Patric
A1 - Schönberger, Christine
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Large-scale application of the flood damage model RAilway Infrastructure Loss (RAIL)
JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
N2 - Experience has shown that river floods can significantly hamper the reliability of railway networks and cause extensive structural damage and disruption. As a result, the national railway operator in Austria had to cope with financial losses of more than EUR 100 million due to flooding in recent years. Comprehensive information on potential flood risk hot spots as well as on expected flood damage in Austria is therefore needed for strategic flood risk management. In view of this, the flood damage model RAIL (RAilway Infrastructure Loss) was applied to estimate (1) the expected structural flood damage and (2) the resulting repair costs of railway infrastructure due to a 30-, 100- and 300-year flood in the Austrian Mur River catchment. The results were then used to calculate the expected annual damage of the railway subnetwork and subsequently analysed in terms of their sensitivity to key model assumptions. Additionally, the impact of risk aversion on the estimates was investigated, and the overall results were briefly discussed against the background of climate change and possibly resulting changes in flood risk. The findings indicate that the RAIL model is capable of supporting decision-making in risk management by providing comprehensive risk information on the catchment level. It is furthermore demonstrated that an increased risk aversion of the railway operator has a marked influence on flood damage estimates for the study area and, hence, should be considered with regard to the development of risk management strategies.
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-2357-2016
SN - 1561-8633
VL - 16
SP - 2357
EP - 2371
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Konzepte zur Umsetzung von Hochwasservorsorge und Risikomanagement
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 51
EP - 65
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - CHAP
A1 - López-Tarazón, José Andrés
A1 - Bronstert, Axel
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Petrow, Theresia
ED - López-Tarazón, José Andrés
ED - Bronstert, Axel
ED - Thieken, Annegret
ED - Petrow, Theresia
T1 - International symposium on the effects of global change on floods, fluvial geomorphology and related hazards in mountainous rivers
T2 - Book of Abstracts
N2 - Both Alpine and Mediterranean areas are considered sensitive to so-called global change, considered as the combination of climate and land use changes. All panels on climate evolution predict future scenarios of increasing frequency and magnitude of floods which are likely to lead to huge geomorphic adjustments of river channels so major metamorphosis of fluvial systems is expected as a result of global change. Such pressures are likely to give rise to major ecological and economic changes and challenges that governments need to address as a matter of priority. Changes in river flow regimes associated with global change are therefore ushering in a new era, where there is a critical need to evaluate hydro-geomorphological hazards from headwaters to lowland areas (flooding can be not just a problem related to being under the water). A key question is how our understanding of these hazards associated with global change can be improved; improvement has to come from integrated research which includes the climatological and physical conditions that could influence the hydrology and sediment generation and hence the conveyance of water and sediments (including the river’s capacity, i.e. amount of sediment, and competence, i.e. channel deformation) and the vulnerabilities and economic repercussions of changing hydrological hazards (including the evaluation of the hydro-geomorphological risks too).
Within this framework, the purpose of this international symposium is to bring together researchers from several disciplines as hydrology, fluvial geomorphology, hydraulic engineering, environmental science, geography, economy (and any other related discipline) to discuss the effects of global change over the river system in relation with floods. The symposium is organized by means of invited talks given by prominent experts, oral lectures, poster sessions and discussion sessions for each individual topic; it will try to improve our understanding of how rivers are likely to evolve as a result of global change and hence address the associated hazards of that fluvial environmental change concerning flooding.
Four main topics are going to be addressed:
- Modelling global change (i.e. climate and land-use) at relevant spatial (regional, local) and temporal (from the long-term to the single-event) scales.
- Measuring and modelling river floods from the hydrological, sediment transport (both suspended and bedload) and channel morphology points of view at different spatial (from the catchment to the reach) and temporal (from the long-term to the single-event) scales.
- Evaluation and assessment of current and future river flooding hazards and risks in a global change perspective.
- Catchment management to face river floods in a changing world.
We are very pleased to welcome you to Potsdam. We hope you will enjoy your participation at the International Symposium on the Effects of Global Change on Floods, Fluvial Geomorphology and Related Hazards in Mountainous Rivers and have an exciting and profitable experience. Finally, we would like to thank all speakers, participants, supporters, and sponsors for their contributions that for sure will make of this event a very remarkable and fruitful meeting. We acknowledge the valuable support of the European Commission (Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship, Project ‘‘Floodhazards’’, PIEF-GA-2013-622468, Seventh EU Framework Programme) and the Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (Research Training Group “Natural Hazards and Risks in a Changing World” (NatRiskChange; GRK 2043/1) as the symposium would not have been possible without their help. Without your cooperation, this symposium would not be either possible or successful.
KW - natural hazards
KW - mountainous rivers
KW - floods
KW - global change
KW - geomorphology
Y1 - 2017
U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-396922
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Bubeck, Philip
A1 - Botzen, W. J. Wouter
A1 - Laudan, Jonas
A1 - Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Insights into flood-coping appraisals of protection motivation theory
BT - Empirical evidence from Germany and France
JF - Risk analysis
N2 - Protection motivation theory (PMT) has become a popular theory to explain the risk-reducing behavior of residents against natural hazards. PMT captures the two main cognitive processes that individuals undergo when faced with a threat, namely, threat appraisal and coping appraisal. The latter describes the evaluation of possible response measures that may reduce or avert the perceived threat. Although the coping appraisal component of PMT was found to be a better predictor of protective intentions and behavior, little is known about the factors that influence individuals’ coping appraisals of natural hazards. More insight into flood-coping appraisals of PMT, therefore, are needed to better understand the decision-making process of individuals and to develop effective risk communication strategies. This study presents the results of two surveys among more than 1,600 flood-prone households in Germany and France. Five hypotheses were tested using multivariate statistics regarding factors related to flood-coping appraisals, which were derived from the PMT framework, related literature, and the literature on social vulnerability. We found that socioeconomic characteristics alone are not sufficient to explain flood-coping appraisals. Particularly, observational learning from the social environment, such as friends and neighbors, is positively related to flood-coping appraisals. This suggests that social norms and networks play an important role in flood-preparedness decisions. Providing risk and coping information can also have a positive effect. Given the strong positive influence of the social environment on flood-coping appraisals, future research should investigate how risk communication can be enhanced by making use of the observed social norms and network effects.
KW - Coping appraisal
KW - floods
KW - protection motivation theory (PMT)
KW - risk communication
KW - social vulnerability
Y1 - 2018
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12938
SN - 0272-4332
SN - 1539-6924
VL - 38
IS - 6
SP - 1239
EP - 1257
PB - Wiley
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Natho, Stephanie
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Implementation and adaptation of a macro-scale method to assess and monitor direct economic losses caused by natural hazards
JF - International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
N2 - As one of the 195 member countries of the United Nations, Germany signed the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR). Among other targets, the SFDRR aims at reducing direct economic losses caused by natural hazards by 2030. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) has hence proposed a methodology for estimating direct economic losses per event and country, based on experiences from developing countries. Since its usability in industrialized countries is unknown, this study presents the first implementation and validation of this approach in Germany. The methodology was tested for the three costliest natural hazard types in Germany, i.e. floods, wind and hail storms, considering 12 case studies between 1984 and 2016. Although the event-specific input data requirements are restricted to the number of damaged or destroyed units per sector, incomplete event documentations did not allow a full validation of all sectors necessary to describe the total direct economic loss. New modules (cars, forestry, paved roads, housing contents and overall costs of urban infrastructure) were developed to better adapt this methodology to German conditions. Whereas the original UNISDR methodology both over-and underestimates the losses of the tested events by a wide margin, the adapted methodology is able to calculate losses accounting well for all event types except for flash floods. Hence, this approach serves as a good starting point for macro-scale loss estimations. By implementing this approach into damage and event documentation and reporting standards, a consistent monitoring of the SFDRR could be achieved.
KW - Germany
KW - Direct economic loss
KW - Natural hazards
KW - Flood
KW - Storm
KW - Hail
KW - Loss modelling
Y1 - 2018
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.03.008
SN - 2212-4209
VL - 28
SP - 191
EP - 205
PB - Elsevier
CY - Amsterdam
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Vogel, Kristin
A1 - Weise, Laura
A1 - Schröter, Kai
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Identifying Driving Factors in Flood-Damaging Processes Using Graphical Models
JF - Water resources research
N2 - Flood damage estimation is a core task in flood risk assessments and requires reliable flood loss models. Identifying the driving factors of flood loss at residential buildings and gaining insight into their relations is important to improve our understanding of flood damage processes. For that purpose, we learn probabilistic graphical models, which capture and illustrate (in-)dependencies between the considered variables. The models are learned based on postevent surveys with flood-affected residents after six flood events, which occurred in Germany between 2002 and 2013. Besides the sustained building damage, the survey data contain information about flooding parameters, early warning and emergency measures, property-level mitigation measures and preparedness, socioeconomic characteristics of the household, and building characteristics. The analysis considers the entire data set with a total of 4,468 cases as well as subsets of the data set partitioned into single flood events and flood types: river floods, levee breaches, surface water flooding, and groundwater floods, to reveal differences in the damaging processes. The learned networks suggest that the flood loss ratio of residential buildings is directly influenced by hydrological and hydraulic aspects as well as by building characteristics and property-level mitigation measures. The study demonstrates also that for different flood events and process types the building damage is influenced by varying factors. This suggests that flood damage models need to be capable of reproducing these differences for spatial and temporal model transfers.
KW - flood loss
KW - Bayesian Network
KW - Markov Blanket
KW - vulnerability
KW - Germany
Y1 - 2018
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR022858
SN - 0043-1397
SN - 1944-7973
VL - 54
IS - 11
SP - 8864
EP - 8889
PB - American Geophysical Union
CY - Washington
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Cammerer, Holger
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Historical development and future outlook of the flood damage potential of residential areas in the Alpine Lech Valley (Austria) between 1971 and 2030
JF - Regional environmental change
N2 - In the recent past, the Alpine Lech valley (Austria) experienced three damaging flood events within 6 years despite the various structural flood protection measures in place. For an improved flood risk management, the analysis of flood damage potentials is a crucial component. Since the expansion of built-up areas and their associated values is seen as one of the main drivers of rising flood losses, the goal of this study is to analyze the spatial development of the assets at risk, particularly of residential areas, due to land use changes over a historic period (since 1971) and up to possible shifts in future (until 2030). The analysis revealed that the alpine study area was faced to remarkable land use changes like urbanization and the decline of agriculturally used grassland areas. Although the major agglomeration of residential areas inside the flood plains took place before 1971, a steady growth of values at risk can still be observed until now. Even for the future, the trend is ongoing, but depends very much on the assumed land use scenario and the underlying land use policy. Between 1971 and 2006, the annual growth rate of the damage potential of residential areas amounted to 1.1 % ('constant values,' i.e., asset values at constant prices of reference year 2006) or 3.0 % ('adjusted values,' i.e., asset values adjusted by GDP increase at constant prices of reference year 2006) for three flood scenarios. For the projected time span between 2006 and 2030, a further annual increase by 1.0 % ('constant values') or even 4.2 % ('adjusted values') may be possible when the most extreme urbanization scenario 'Overall Growth' is considered. Although socio-economic development is regarded as the main driver for increasing flood losses, our analysis shows that settlement development does not preferably take place within flood prone areas.
KW - Asset estimation
KW - Flood damage potential
KW - Land use change
KW - Mountain basins
KW - Temporal variability
Y1 - 2013
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-013-0407-9
SN - 1436-3798
VL - 13
IS - 5
SP - 999
EP - 1012
PB - Springer
CY - Heidelberg
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Kellermann, Patric
A1 - Bubeck, Philip
A1 - Kundela, Guenther
A1 - Dosio, Alessandro
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Frequency Analysis of Critical Meteorological Conditions in a Changing ClimateAssessing Future Implications for Railway Transportation in Austria
JF - Climate : open access journal
N2 - Meteorological extreme events have great potential for damaging railway infrastructure and posing risks to the safety of train passengers. In the future, climate change will presumably have serious implications on meteorological hazards in the Alpine region. Hence, attaining insights on future frequencies of meteorological extremes with relevance for the railway operation in Austria is required in the context of a comprehensive and sustainable natural hazard management plan of the railway operator. In this study, possible impacts of climate change on the frequencies of so-called critical meteorological conditions (CMCs) between the periods 1961-1990 and 2011-2040 are analyzed. Thresholds for such CMCs have been defined by the railway operator and used in its weather monitoring and early warning system. First, the seasonal climate change signals for air temperature and precipitation in Austria are described on the basis of an ensemble of high-resolution Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations for Europe. Subsequently, the RCM-ensemble was used to investigate changes in the frequency of CMCs. Finally, the sensitivity of results is analyzed with varying threshold values for the CMCs. Results give robust indications for an all-season air temperature rise, but show no clear tendency in average precipitation. The frequency analyses reveal an increase in intense rainfall events and heat waves, whereas heavy snowfall and cold days are likely to decrease. Furthermore, results indicate that frequencies of CMCs are rather sensitive to changes of thresholds. It thus emphasizes the importance to carefully define, validate, andif neededto adapt the thresholds that are used in the weather monitoring and warning system of the railway operator. For this, continuous and standardized documentation of damaging events and near-misses is a pre-requisite.
KW - climate change
KW - critical meteorological condition
KW - frequency analysis
KW - natural hazard management
KW - railway transportation
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/cli4020025
SN - 2225-1154
VL - 4
SP - 914
EP - 931
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - GEN
A1 - Kellermann, Patric
A1 - Bubeck, Philip
A1 - Kundela, Günther
A1 - Dosio, Alessandro
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Frequency analysis of critical meteorological conditions in a changing climate
BT - assessing future implications for railway transportation in Austria
N2 - Meteorological extreme events have great potential for damaging railway infrastructure and posing risks to the safety of train passengers. In the future, climate change will presumably have serious implications on meteorological hazards in the Alpine region. Hence, attaining insights on future frequencies of meteorological extremes with relevance for the railway operation in Austria is required in the context of a comprehensive and sustainable natural hazard management plan of the railway operator. In this study, possible impacts of climate change on the frequencies of so-called critical meteorological conditions (CMCs) between the periods 1961-1990 and 2011-2040 are analyzed. Thresholds for such CMCs have been defined by the railway operator and used in its weather monitoring and early warning system. First, the seasonal climate change signals for air temperature and precipitation in Austria are described on the basis of an ensemble of high-resolution Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations for Europe. Subsequently, the RCM-ensemble was used to investigate changes in the frequency of CMCs. Finally, the sensitivity of results is analyzed with varying threshold values for the CMCs. Results give robust indications for an all-season air temperature rise, but show no clear tendency in average precipitation. The frequency analyses reveal an increase in intense rainfall events and heat waves, whereas heavy snowfall and cold days are likely to decrease. Furthermore, results indicate that frequencies of CMCs are rather sensitive to changes of thresholds. It thus emphasizes the importance to carefully define, validate, andif neededto adapt the thresholds that are used in the weather monitoring and warning system of the railway operator. For this, continuous and standardized documentation of damaging events and near-misses is a pre-requisite.
T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 358
KW - climate change
KW - critical meteorological condition
KW - frequency analysis
KW - natural hazard management
KW - railway transportation
Y1 - 2017
U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-400505
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Kellermann, Patric
A1 - Schoebel, A.
A1 - Kundela, G.
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Estimating flood damage to railway infrastructure - the case study of the March River flood in 2006 at the Austrian Northern Railway
JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
N2 - Models for estimating flood losses to infrastructure are rare and their reliability is seldom investigated although infrastructure losses might contribute considerably to the overall flood losses. In this paper, an empirical modelling approach for estimating direct structural flood damage to railway infrastructure and associated financial losses is presented. Via a combination of event data, i.e. photo-documented damage on the Northern Railway in Lower Austria caused by the March River flood in 2006, and simulated flood characteristics, i.e. water levels, flow velocities and combinations thereof, the correlations between physical flood impact parameters and damage occurred to the railway track were investigated and subsequently rendered into a damage model. After calibrating the loss estimation using recorded repair costs of the Austrian Federal Railways, the model was applied to three synthetic scenarios with return periods of 30, 100 and 300 years of March River flooding. Finally, the model results are compared to depth-damage-curve-based approaches for the infrastructure sector obtained from the Rhine Atlas damage model and the Damage Scanner model. The results of this case study indicate a good performance of our two-stage model approach. However, due to a lack of independent event and damage data, the model could not yet be validated. Future research in natural risk should focus on the development of event and damage documentation procedures to overcome this significant hurdle in flood damage modelling.
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-15-2485-2015
SN - 1561-8633
VL - 15
IS - 11
SP - 2485
EP - 2496
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Cammerer, Holger
A1 - Dobler, Christian
A1 - Lammel, Johannes
A1 - Schoeberl, Fritz
T1 - Estimating changes in flood risks and benefits of non-structural adaptation strategies - a case study from Tyrol, Austria
JF - Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change : an international journal devoted to scientific, engineering, socio-economic and policy responses to environmental change
N2 - Flood damage has increased significantly and is expected to rise further in many parts of the world. For assessing potential changes in flood risk, this paper presents an integrated model chain quantifying flood hazards and losses while considering climate and land use changes. In the case study region, risk estimates for the present and the near future illustrate that changes in flood risk by 2030 are relatively low compared to historic periods. While the impact of climate change on the flood hazard and risk by 2030 is slight or negligible, strong urbanisation associated with economic growth contributes to a remarkable increase in flood risk. Therefore, it is recommended to frequently consider land use scenarios and economic developments when assessing future flood risks. Further, an adapted and sustainable risk management is necessary to encounter rising flood losses, in which non-structural measures are becoming more and more important. The case study demonstrates that adaptation by non-structural measures such as stricter land use regulations or enhancement of private precaution is capable of reducing flood risk by around 30 %. Ignoring flood risks, in contrast, always leads to further increasing losses-with our assumptions by 17 %. These findings underline that private precaution and land use regulation could be taken into account as low cost adaptation strategies to global climate change in many flood prone areas. Since such measures reduce flood risk regardless of climate or land use changes, they can also be recommended as no-regret measures.
KW - Flood risk
KW - Scenarios
KW - Adaptation to climate change
KW - Hazard
KW - Vulnerability
KW - Lech catchment
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-014-9602-3
SN - 1381-2386
SN - 1573-1596
VL - 21
SP - 343
EP - 376
PB - Springer
CY - Dordrecht
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
T1 - Entwicklungn der technischen Systeme und der Organisaton in der Warnkette seit 2002
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 123
EP - 132
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Petrow, Theresia
A1 - Hasan, Issa
A1 - Otto, Antje
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Entwicklungen in der Gesetzgebung zm Hochwasserrisikomanagment
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 47
EP - 51
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Petrow, Theresia
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Entwicklunge in der Flächenvorsorge
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 92
EP - 99
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Einleitung
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 13
EP - 17
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Vogel, Kristin
A1 - Ozturk, Ugur
A1 - Riemer, Adrian
A1 - Laudan, Jonas
A1 - Sieg, Tobias
A1 - Wendi, Dadiyorto
A1 - Agarwal, Ankit
A1 - Roezer, Viktor
A1 - Korup, Oliver
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Die Sturzflut von Braunsbach am 29. Mai 2016 – Entstehung, Ablauf und Schäden eines „Jahrhundertereignisses“
T1 - The Braunsbach Flashflood of Mai 29th, 2016-Origin, Pathways and Impacts of an Extreme Hydro-Meteorological Event
BT - Teil 2: Geomorphologische Prozesse und Schadensanalyse
BT - Part 2: Geomorphological Processes and Damage Analysis
JF - Hydrologie und Wasserbewirtschaftung
N2 - Am Abend des 29. Mai 2016 wurde der Ort Braunsbach im Landkreis Schwäbisch-Hall (Baden-Württemberg) von einer Sturzflut getroffen, bei der mehrere Häuser stark beschädigt oder zerstört wurden. Die Sturzflut war eine der Unwetterfolgen, die im Frühsommer 2016 vom Tiefdruckgebiet Elvira ausgelöst wurden. Der vorliegende Bericht ist der zweite Teil einer Doppelveröffentlichung, welche die Ergebnisse zur Untersuchung des Sturzflutereignisses im Rahmen des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs “Naturgefahren und Risiken in einer sich verändernden Welt” (NatRiskChange, GRK 2043/1) der Universität Potsdam präsentiert. Während Teil 1 die meteorologischen und hydrologischen Ereignisse analysiert, fokussiert Teil 2 auf die geomorphologischen Prozesse und die verursachten Gebäudeschäden. Dazu wurden Ursprung und Ausmaß des während des Sturzflutereignisses mobilisierten und in den Ort getragenen Materials untersucht. Des Weiteren wurden zu 96 betroffenen Gebäuden Daten zum Schadensgrad sowie Prozess- und Gebäudecharakteristika aufgenommen und ausgewertet. Die Untersuchungen zeigen, dass bei der Betrachtung von Hochwassergefährdung die Berücksichtigung von Sturzfluten und ihrer speziellen Charakteristika, wie hoher Feststofftransport und sprunghaftes Verhalten insbesondere in bebautem Gelände, wesentlich ist, um effektive Schutzmaßnahmen ergreifen zu können.
N2 - A severe flash flood event hit the town of Braunsbach (Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) on the evening of May 29, 2016, heavily damaging and destroying several dozens of buildings. It was only one of several disastrous events in Central Europe caused by the low-pressure system "Elvira". The DFG Graduate School "Natural hazards and risks in a changing world" (NatRiskChange, GRK 2043/1) at the University of Potsdam investigated the Braunsbach flash flood as a recent showcase for catastrophic events triggered by severe weather. This contribution is part two of a back-to-back publication on the results of this storm event. While part 1 analyses the meteorological and hydrological situation, part 2 concentrates on the geomorphological aspects and damage to buildings. The study outlines the origin and amount of material that was mobilized and transported into the town by the flood, and analyses damage data collected for 96 affected buildings, describing the degree of impact, underlying processes, and building characteristics. Due to the potentially high sediment load of flash floods and their non-steady and non-uniform flow especially in built-up areas, the damaging processes differ from those of clear water floods. The results underline the need to consider flash floods and their specific behaviour in flood hazard assessments.
KW - flash flood
KW - flood risk
KW - damaging processes
KW - debris flow
KW - erosion
KW - landslides
KW - Braunsbach
KW - Sturzflut
KW - Hochwassergefährdung
KW - Schadensprozesse
KW - Erosion
KW - Hangrutschungen
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5675/HyWa_2017,3_2
SN - 1439-1783
VL - 61
IS - 3
SP - 163
EP - 175
PB - Bundesanst. für Gewässerkunde
CY - Koblenz
ER -
TY - RPRT
A1 - Agarwal, Ankit
A1 - Boessenkool, Berry
A1 - Fischer, Madlen
A1 - Hahn, Irene
A1 - Köhn, Lisei
A1 - Laudan, Jonas
A1 - Moran, Thomas
A1 - Öztürk, Ugur
A1 - Riemer, Adrian
A1 - Rözer, Viktor
A1 - Sieg, Tobias
A1 - Vogel, Kristin
A1 - Wendi, Dadiyorto
A1 - Bronstert, Axel
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Die Sturzflut in Braunsbach, Mai 2016
T1 - The flash flood of Braunsbach, May 2006
BT - eine Bestandsaufnahme und Ereignisbeschreibung
BT - a hydrological survey and event analysis
N2 - Im Graduiertenkolleg NatRiskChange der Universität Potsdam und anderen Forschungseinrichtungen werden beobachtete sowie zukünftig mögliche Veränderungen von Naturgefahren untersucht. Teil des strukturierten Doktorandenprogramms sind sogenannte Task-Force-Einsätze, bei denen die Promovierende zeitlich begrenzt ein aktuelles Ereignis auswerten. Im Zuge dieser Aktivität wurde die Sturzflut vom 29.05.2016 in Braunsbach (Baden-Württemberg) untersucht.
In diesem Bericht werden erste Auswertungen zur Einordnung der Niederschläge, zu den hydrologischen und geomorphologischen Prozessen im Einzugsgebiet des Orlacher Bachs sowie zu den verursachten Schäden beleuchtet.
Die Region war Zentrum extremer Regenfälle in der Größenordnung von 100 mm innerhalb von 2 Stunden. Das 6 km² kleine Einzugsgebiet hat eine sehr schnelle Reaktionszeit, zumal bei vorgesättigtem Boden. Im steilen Bachtal haben mehrere kleinere und größere Hangrutschungen über 8000 m³ Geröll, Schutt und Schwemmholz in das Gewässer eingetragen und möglicherweise kurzzeitige Aufstauungen und Durchbrüche verursacht. Neben den großen Wassermengen mit einer Abflussspitze in einer Größenordnung von 100 m³/s hat gerade die Geschiebefracht zu großen Schäden an den Gebäuden entlang des Bachlaufs in Braunsbach geführt.
N2 - The DFG graduate school “Natural Hazards and Risks in a Changing World” (NatRiskChange), which is located at the University of Potsdam and its partner institutions, studies previous as well as ongoing and potential future changes in the risk posed by natural hazards. The education program includes so-called task force activities, where the PhD students conduct a rapid event assessment directly after the occurrence of a hazardous natural event. Within this context the flash flood that hit the village Braunsbach (Baden-Württemberg, Germany) at May 29th, 2016 was investigated.
This report summarizes first results describing the rainfall amount and intensities as well as hydrological and geomorphological processes in the corresponding catchment area of the Orlacher Bach. Further, the damages caused in Braunsbach are investigated.
Rainfall intensity measures documented extreme precipitation in the area of Braunsbach with a cumulative amount of about 100 mm within 2 hours. The small catchment area, with a size of 6 km², has a small response time, especially under pre-saturated soil conditions. Several landslides, that occurred at the steep slopes of the river valley, transported more than 8000 m³ of gravel, debris and organic material into the water runoff. They may have caused temporal blockades, that collapsed after a certain amount of water accumulated. In addition to the high discharge, with peak values in the order of 100 m³/s, the high sediment content of the flash flood is mainly responsible for the large damages caused to the buildings in Braunsbach.
KW - Sturzflut
KW - Naturgefahren
KW - Extremniederschlag
KW - Schadensabschätzung
KW - Hangrutschungen
KW - flash flood
KW - natural hazards
KW - extreme precipitation
KW - damage assessment
KW - landslides
Y1 - 2016
U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-394881
ER -
TY - BOOK
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Bessel, Tina
A1 - Callsen, Ines
A1 - Falter, Daniela
A1 - Hasan, Issa
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Kox, Thomas
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Kuhlicke, Christian
A1 - Kunz, Michael
A1 - Matthias, Max
A1 - Meyer, Volker
A1 - Mühr, Bernhard
A1 - Müller, Meike
A1 - Otto, Antje
A1 - Pech, Ina
A1 - Petrow, Theresia
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
A1 - Rother, Karl-Heinz
A1 - Schröter, Kai
T1 - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013
BT - Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
T3 - Schriftenreihe des DKKV ; 53
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Danksagung
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 11
EP - 11
PB - Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge
CY - Bonn
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Laudan, Jonas
A1 - Roezer, Viktor
A1 - Sieg, Tobias
A1 - Vogel, Kristin
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Damage assessment in Braunsbach 2016: data collection and analysis for an improved understanding of damaging processes during flash floods
JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-2163-2017
SN - 1561-8633
VL - 17
SP - 2163
EP - 2179
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -
TY - INPR
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M.
A1 - Bouwer, Laurens M.
A1 - Bubeck, Philip
A1 - Ciavola, Paolo
A1 - Green, Colin
A1 - Hallegatte, Stephane
A1 - Logar, Ivana
A1 - Meyer, Volker
A1 - Schwarze, Reimund
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Costing natural hazards
T2 - Nature climate change
Y1 - 2014
SN - 1758-678X
SN - 1758-6798
VL - 4
IS - 5
SP - 303
EP - 306
PB - Nature Publ. Group
CY - London
ER -
TY - GEN
A1 - Rözer, Viktor
A1 - Müller, Meike
A1 - Bubeck, Philip
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Pech, Ina
A1 - Schröter, Kai
A1 - Buchholz, Oliver
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
T1 - Coping with pluvial floods by private households
N2 - Pluvial floods have caused severe damage to urban areas in recent years. With a projected increase in extreme precipitation as well as an ongoing urbanization, pluvial flood damage is expected to increase in the future. Therefore, further insights, especially on the adverse consequences of pluvial floods and their mitigation, are needed. To gain more knowledge, empirical damage data from three different pluvial flood events in Germany were collected through computer-aided telephone interviews. Pluvial flood awareness as well as flood experience were found to be low before the respective flood events. The level of private precaution increased considerably after all events, but is mainly focused on measures that are easy to implement. Lower inundation depths, smaller potential losses as compared with fluvial floods, as well as the fact that pluvial flooding may occur everywhere, are expected to cause a shift in damage mitigation from precaution to emergency response. However, an effective implementation of emergency measures was constrained by a low dissemination of early warnings in the study areas. Further improvements of early warning systems including dissemination as well as a rise in pluvial flood preparedness are important to reduce future pluvial flood damage.
T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 355
KW - pluvial floods
KW - surface water flooding
KW - emergency response
KW - early warning
KW - preparedness
KW - damage
KW - mitigation
Y1 - 2017
U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-400465
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Rözer, Viktor
A1 - Müller, Meike
A1 - Bubeck, Philip
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Pech, Ina
A1 - Schröter, Kai
A1 - Buchholz, Oliver
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
T1 - Coping with Pluvial Floods by Private Households
JF - Water
N2 - Pluvial floods have caused severe damage to urban areas in recent years. With a projected increase in extreme precipitation as well as an ongoing urbanization, pluvial flood damage is expected to increase in the future. Therefore, further insights, especially on the adverse consequences of pluvial floods and their mitigation, are needed. To gain more knowledge, empirical damage data from three different pluvial flood events in Germany were collected through computer-aided telephone interviews. Pluvial flood awareness as well as flood experience were found to be low before the respective flood events. The level of private precaution increased considerably after all events, but is mainly focused on measures that are easy to implement. Lower inundation depths, smaller potential losses as compared with fluvial floods, as well as the fact that pluvial flooding may occur everywhere, are expected to cause a shift in damage mitigation from precaution to emergency response. However, an effective implementation of emergency measures was constrained by a low dissemination of early warnings in the study areas. Further improvements of early warning systems including dissemination as well as a rise in pluvial flood preparedness are important to reduce future pluvial flood damage.
KW - pluvial floods
KW - surface water flooding
KW - emergency response
KW - early warning
KW - preparedness
KW - damage
KW - mitigation
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/w8070304
SN - 2073-4441
VL - 8
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Contributions of flood insurance toeEnhance resilience-findings from Germany
BT - Findings from Germany
JF - Urban Disaster Resilience and Security
N2 - In 2002, a severe flood caused financial losses of EUR 11.6 billion in Germany and triggered many changes in flood risk management. This chapter focuses on flood insurance, which is a voluntary supplementary insurance in Germany: it is explored how flood insurance has contributed to enhance resilience of flood-prone residents. The analyses are based on empirical data collected by post-event surveys in the federal states of Saxony and Bavaria and refer to the three pillars upon which the concept of flood resilience usually builds in the natural hazards context: recovery, adaptive capacity and resistance. Overall, the penetration of flood insurance has increased since 2002 and there is strong empirical evidence that losses of insured residents are more often and better compensated than those of uninsured despite the provision of governmental financial disaster assistance after big floods. This facilitation of recovery is, however, not the only contribution to flood resilience. Insured residents tend to invest more in further flood mitigation measures at their properties than uninsured. Obviously, flood insurance is embedded in a complex safety strategy of property owners that needs more investigation in order to be addressed more effectively in risk communication and integrated risk management strategies.
KW - Flood losses
KW - Recovery
KW - Climate change adaptation Saxony
KW - Bavaria
Y1 - 2017
SN - 978-3-319-68606-6
SN - 978-3-319-68605-9
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68606-6_9
SN - 2365-757X
SP - 129
EP - 144
PB - Springer
CY - Cham
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Mysiak, Jaroslav
A1 - Surminski, Swenja
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Mechler, Reinhard
A1 - Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.
T1 - Brief communication: Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction - success or warning sign for Paris?
JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
N2 - In March 2015, a new international blueprint for disaster risk reduction (DRR) was adopted in Sendai, Japan, at the end of the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR, 14-18 March 2015). We review and discuss the agreed commitments and targets, as well as the negotiation leading the Sendai Framework for DRR (SF-DRR) and discuss briefly its implication for the later UN-led negotiations on sustainable development goals and climate change.
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-2189-2016
SN - 1561-8633
VL - 16
SP - 2189
EP - 2193
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Müller, Meike
A1 - Bessel, Tina
A1 - Pisi, Sebastian
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Auswirkungen und Schäden
JF - Das Hochwasser im Juni 2013 : Bewährungsprobe für das Hochwasserrisikomanagement in Deutschland
Y1 - 2015
SN - 978-3-933181-62-6
SP - 31
EP - 45
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Apel, Heiko
A1 - Merz, Bruno
T1 - Assessing the probability of large-scale flood loss events: a case study for the river Rhine, Germany
JF - Journal of flood risk management
N2 - Flood risk analyses are often estimated assuming the same flood intensity along the river reach under study, i.e. discharges are calculated for a number of return periods T, e.g. 10 or 100 years, at several streamflow gauges. T-year discharges are regionalised and then transferred into T-year water levels, inundated areas and impacts. This approach assumes that (1) flood scenarios are homogeneous throughout a river basin, and (2) the T-year damage corresponds to the T-year discharge. Using a reach at the river Rhine, this homogeneous approach is compared with an approach that is based on four flood types with different spatial discharge patterns. For each type, a regression model was created and used in a Monte-Carlo framework to derive heterogeneous scenarios. Per scenario, four cumulative impact indicators were calculated: (1) the total inundated area, (2) the exposed settlement and industrial areas, (3) the exposed population and 4) the potential building loss. Their frequency curves were used to establish a ranking of eight past flood events according to their severity. The investigation revealed that the two assumptions of the homogeneous approach do not hold. It tends to overestimate event probabilities in large areas. Therefore, the generation of heterogeneous scenarios should receive more attention.
KW - damage estimation
KW - discharge pattern
KW - exposure
KW - flood risk analysis
KW - frequency analysis
KW - land-use
KW - population density
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/jfr3.12091
SN - 1753-318X
VL - 8
IS - 3
SP - 247
EP - 262
PB - Wiley-Blackwell
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy
A1 - Apel, Heiko
A1 - Kemter, Matthias
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Analyse der Hochwassergefährdung im Ahrtal unter Berücksichtigung historischer Hochwasser
T1 - Analysis of flood hazard in the Ahr Valley considering historical floods
JF - Hydrologie und Wasserbewirtschaftung
N2 - The flood disaster in July 2021 in western Germany calls for a critical discussion on flood hazard assessment, revision of flood hazard maps and communication of extreme flood scenarios. In the presented work, extreme value analysis was carried out for annual maximum peak flow series at the Altenahr gauge on the river Ahr. We compared flood statistics with and without considering historical flood events. An estimate for the return period of the recent flood based on the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution considering historical floods ranges between about 2600 and above 58700 years (90% confidence interval) with a median of approximately 8600 years, whereas an estimate based on the 74-year long systematically recorded flow series would theoretically exceed 100 million years. Consideration of historical floods dramatically changes the flood quantiles that are used for the generation of official flood hazard maps. The fitting of the GEV to the time series with historical floods reveals, however, that the model potentially inadequately reflects the flood population. In this case, we might face a mixed sample, in which extreme floods result from very different processes compared to smaller floods. Hence, the probabilities of extreme floods could be much larger than those resulting from a single GEV model. The application of a process-based mixed flood distribution should be explored in future work.
The comparison of the official HQextrem flood maps for the AhrValley with the inundation areas from July 2021 shows a striking discrepancy in the affected areas and calls for revision of design values used to define extreme flood scenarios. The hydrodynamic simulations of a 1000-year return period flood considering historical events and of the 1804 flood scenario compare much better to the flooded areas from July 2021, though both scenarios still underestimated the flood extent.
Particular effects such as clogging of bridges and geomorphological changes of the river channel led to considerably larger flooded areas in July 2021 compared to the simulation results. Based on this analysis, we call for a consistent definition of HQextrem for flood hazard mapping in Germany, and suggest using high flood quantiles in the range of a 1,000-year flood. Flood maps should additionally include model-based reconstructions of the largest, reliably documented historical floods and/or synthetic worst-case scenarios. This would be an important step towards protecting potentially affected population and disaster management from surprises due to very rare and extreme flood events in future.
N2 - Die Hochwasserkatastrophe im Juli 2021 in Westdeutschland erfordert eine kritische Diskussion über die Abschätzung der Hochwassergefährdung, Aktualisierung von Hochwassergefahrenkarten und Kommunikation von extremen Hochwasserszenarien. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde die Extremwertstatistik für die jährlichen maximalen Spitzenabflüsse am Pegel Altenahr im Ahrtal mit und ohne Berücksichtigung historischer Hochwasser berechnet und verglichen. Die Schätzung der Wiederkehrperiode für das aktuelle Hochwasser mittels Generalisierter Extremwertverteilung (GEV) unter Berücksichtigung historischer Hochwasser schwankt zwischen etwa 2.600 und über 58.700 Jahren (90%-Konfidenzintervall) mit einem Median bei etwa 8.600 Jahren, wogegen die Schätzung, die nur auf der systematisch gemessenen Abflusszeitreihe von 74 Jahren basiert, theoretisch eine Wiederkehrperiode von über 100 Millionen Jahren ergeben würde. Die Berücksichtigung der historischen Hochwasser führt zu einer dramatischen Änderung der Hochwasserquan-
tile, die für eine Gefahrenkartierung zugrunde gelegt werden. Die Anpassung der GEV an die Zeitreihe mit historischen Hochwassern zeigt dennoch, dass das GEV-Modell möglicherweise die Grundgesamtheit der Hochwasser im Ahrtal nicht adäquat abbilden kann. Es könnte sich im vorliegenden Fall um eine gemischte Stichprobe handeln, in der die extremen Hochwasser im Vergleich zu kleineren Ereignissen durch besondere Prozesse hervorgerufen werden. Somit könnten die Wahrscheinlichkeiten von extremen Hochwassern deutlich größer sein, als aus dem GEV-Modell hervorgeht. Hier sollte in Zukunft die Anwendung einer prozessbasierten Mischverteilung
untersucht werden. Der Vergleich von amtlichen Gefahrenkarten zu Extremhochwassern (HQextrem) im Ahrtal mit den Überflutungsflächen vom Juli 2021
zeigt eine deutliche Diskrepanz in den betroffenen Gebieten und die Notwendigkeit, die Grundlagen zur Erstellung der Extremszenarien zu überdenken. Die hydrodynamisch-numerischen Simulationen von 1.000-jährlichen Hochwassern (HQ1000) unter Berücksichtigung historischer Ereignisse und des größten historischen Hochwassers 1804 können die Gefährdung des Juli-Hochwassers 2021 deutlich besser widerspiegeln, wenngleich auch diese beiden Szenarien die Überflutungsflächen unterschätzen. Besondere Effekte wie die Verklausung von Brücken und die geomorphologischen Änderungen im Flussschlauch führten zu noch größeren Überflutungs- flächen im Juli 2021, als die Simulationsergebnisse zeigten. Basierend auf dieser Analyse wird eine einheitliche Festlegung von HQextrem bei Hochwassergefahrenkartierungen in Deutschland vorgeschlagen, die sich an höheren Hochwasserquantilen im Bereich von HQ1000 orientiert. Zusätzlich sollen simulationsbasierte Rekonstruktionen von den größten verlässlich dokumentierten historischen Hochwassern und/oder synthetische Worst-Case-Szenarien in den Hochwassergefahrenkarten gesondert dargestellt werden. Damit wird ein wichtiger Beitrag geleistet, um die potenziell betroffene Bevölkerung und das Katastrophenmanagement vor Überraschungen durch sehr seltene und extreme Hochwasser in Zukunft besser zu schützen.
KW - Extreme value statistics
KW - historical floods
KW - flood hazard mapping;
KW - inundation simulation
KW - Ahr River
KW - Extremwertstatistik
KW - historische Hochwasser
KW - Gefahrenkarten
KW - Überflutungssimulation
KW - Ahr
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5675/HyWa_2022.5_2
SN - 1439-1783
VL - 66
IS - 5
SP - 244
EP - 254
PB - Bundesanst. für Gewässerkunde
CY - Koblenz
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Kienzler, Sarah
A1 - Pech, Ina
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
A1 - Mueller, M.
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - After the extreme flood in 2002: changes in preparedness, response and recovery of flood-affected residents in Germany between 2005 and 2011
JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
N2 - After the flood in 2002, the level of private precautions taken increased considerably. One contributing factor is the fact that, in general, a larger proportion of people knew that they were at risk of flooding. The best level of precaution was found before the flood events in 2006 and 2011. The main reason for this might be that residents had more experience with flooding than residents affected in 2005 or 2010. Yet, overall, flood experience and knowledge did not necessarily result in building retrofitting or flood-proofing measures, which are considered as mitigating damages most effectively. Hence, investments still need to be stimulated in order to reduce future damage more efficiently.
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-15-505-2015
SN - 1561-8633
VL - 15
IS - 3
SP - 505
EP - 526
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
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 - Wutzler, Bianca
A1 - Hudson, Paul
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Adaptation strategies of flood-damaged businesses in Germany
JF - Frontiers in water
N2 - Flood risk management in Germany follows an integrative approach in which both private households and businesses can make an important contribution to reducing flood damage by implementing property-level adaptation measures. While the flood adaptation behavior of private households has already been widely researched, comparatively less attention has been paid to the adaptation strategies of businesses. However, their ability to cope with flood risk plays an important role in the social and economic development of a flood-prone region. Therefore, using quantitative survey data, this study aims to identify different strategies and adaptation drivers of 557 businesses damaged by a riverine flood in 2013 and 104 businesses damaged by pluvial or flash floods between 2014 and 2017. Our results indicate that a low perceived self-efficacy may be an important factor that can reduce the motivation of businesses to adapt to flood risk. Furthermore, property-owners tended to act more proactively than tenants. In addition, high experience with previous flood events and low perceived response costs could strengthen proactive adaptation behavior. These findings should be considered in business-tailored risk communication.
KW - risk management
KW - climate change adaptation
KW - floods
KW - disaster risk
KW - reduction
KW - Germany
KW - precaution
KW - emergency management
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2022.932061
SN - 2624-9375
VL - 4
PB - Frontiers Media
CY - Lausanne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Uhlemann, Steffi
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - Merz, Bruno
T1 - A quality assessment framework for natural hazard event documentation: application to trans-basin flood reports in Germany
JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
Y1 - 2014
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-14-189-2014
SN - 1561-8633
VL - 14
IS - 2
SP - 189
EP - 208
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme
A1 - Hudson, Paul
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - A comparison of factors driving flood losses in households affected by different flood types
JF - Water resources research
N2 - Flood loss data collection and modeling are not standardized, and previous work has indicated that losses from different flood types (e.g., riverine and groundwater) may follow different driving forces. However, different flood types may occur within a single flood event, which is known as a compound flood event. Therefore, we aimed to identify statistical similarities between loss-driving factors across flood types and test whether the corresponding losses should be modeled separately. In this study, we used empirical data from 4,418 respondents from four survey campaigns studying households in Germany that experienced flooding. These surveys sought to investigate several features of the impact process (hazard, socioeconomic, preparedness, and building characteristics, as well as flood type). While the level of most of these features differed across flood type subsamples (e.g., degree of preparedness), they did so in a nonregular pattern. A variable selection process indicates that besides hazard and building characteristics, information on property-level preparedness was also selected as a relevant predictor of the loss ratio. These variables represent information, which is rarely adopted in loss modeling. Models shall be refined with further data collection and other statistical methods. To save costs, data collection efforts should be steered toward the most relevant predictors to enhance data availability and increase the statistical power of results. Understanding that losses from different flood types are driven by different factors is a crucial step toward targeted data collection and model development and will finally clarify conditions that allow us to transfer loss models in space and time.
Key Points
Survey data of flood-affected households show different concurrent flood types, undermining the use of a single-flood-type loss model Thirteen variables addressing flood hazard, the building, and property level preparedness are significant predictors of the building loss ratio Flood type-specific models show varying significance across the predictor variables, indicating a hindrance to model transferability
KW - Loss modeling
KW - Riverine floods
KW - Surface floods
KW - Groundwater
KW - Levee
KW - breaches
KW - Compound flood event
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2019WR025943
SN - 0043-1397
SN - 1944-7973
VL - 56
IS - 4
PB - American Geophysical Union
CY - Washington
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Spekkers, Matthieu
A1 - Roezer, Viktor
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
A1 - ten Veldhuis, Marie-Claire
A1 - Kreibich, Heidi
T1 - A comparative survey of the impacts of extreme rainfall in two international case studies
JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-1337-2017
SN - 1561-8633
VL - 17
SP - 1337
EP - 1355
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -