Abstract
River floods pose a significant threat to road transport infrastructure in Europe. This study presents a high-resolution object-based continental-scale assessment of direct flood risk of the European road network for the present climate, using high-resolution exposure data from OpenStreetMap. A new set of road-specific damage functions is developed. The expected annual direct damage from large river floods to road infrastructure in Europe is EUR 230 million per year. Compared to grid-based approaches, the object-based approach is more precise and provides more action perspective for road owners because it calculates damage directly for individual road segments while accounting for segment-specific attributes. This enables the identification of European hotspots, such as roads in the Alps and along the Sava River. A first comparison to a reference case shows that the new object-based method computes realistic damage estimates, paving the way for targeted risk reduction strategies.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1011-1027 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences |
Volume | 21 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 15 Mar 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Funding
Funders | Funder number |
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Horizon 2020 Framework Programme | 776479 |