The Value of Empirical Data for Estimating the Parameters of a Sociohydrological Flood Risk Model

M.H. Barendrecht, A. Viglione, H. Kreibich, B. Merz, S. Vorogushyn, G. Blöschl

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

©2019. The Authors.In this paper, empirical data are used to estimate the parameters of a sociohydrological flood risk model. The proposed model, which describes the interactions between floods, settlement density, awareness, preparedness, and flood loss, is based on the literature. Data for the case study of Dresden, Germany, over a period of 200 years, are used to estimate the model parameters through Bayesian inference. The credibility bounds of their estimates are small, even though the data are rather uncertain. A sensitivity analysis is performed to examine the value of the different data sources in estimating the model parameters. In general, the estimated parameters are less biased when using data at the end of the modeled period. Data about flood awareness are the most important to correctly estimate the parameters of this model and to correctly model the system dynamics. Using more data for other variables cannot compensate for the absence of awareness data. More generally, the absence of data mostly affects the estimation of the parameters that are directly related to the variable for which data are missing. This paper demonstrates that combining sociohydrological modeling and empirical data gives additional insights into the sociohydrological system, such as quantifying the forgetfulness of the society, which would otherwise not be easily achieved by sociohydrological models without data or by standard statistical analysis of empirical data.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1312-1336
JournalWater Resources Research
Volume55
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019
Externally publishedYes

Funding

We would like to acknowledge funding from the Marie Sklodowska\u2010Curie Innovative Training Network \u201CA Large\u2010 Scale Systems Approach to Flood Risk Assessment and Management\u2010 SYSTEM\u2010RISK\u201D (grant agreement 676027) and the FWF Vienna Doctoral Programme on Water Resource Systems (W1219\u2010N22). Data used for the inference are included in the supporting information. We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers and the Editor for their useful comments to the original version of the paper. We would also like to thank Patrick Hogan for his help improving the manuscript.

FundersFunder number
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme676027

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