Increasing flood risk under climate change: a pan-European assessment of the benefits of four adaptation strategies

Future flood risk in Europe is likely to increase due to a combination of climatic and socio-economic drivers. Effective adaptation strategies need to be implemented to limit the impact of river flooding on population and assets. This research builds upon a recently developed flood risk assessment framework at European scale to explore the benefits of adaptation against extreme floods. The effect of implementing four different adaptation measures is simulated in the modeling framework. Measures include the rise of flood protections, reduction of the peak flows through water retention, reduction of vulnerability and relocation to safer areas. Their sensitivity is assessed in several configurations under a high-end global warming scenario over the time range 1976–2100. Results suggest that the future increase in expected damage and population affected by river floods can be compensated through different configurations of adaptation measures. The adaptation efforts should favor measures targeted at reducing the impacts of floods, rather than trying to avoid them. Conversely, adaptation plans only based on rising flood protections have the effect of reducing the frequency of small floods and exposing the society to less-frequent but catastrophic floods and potentially long recovery processes.