Pluvial flood catastrophe modelling: a trans-disciplinary approach.

Pluvial floods are one of the most significant natural hazards in Europe causing severe damage to urban areas. Following the projected increase in extreme precipitation and the ongoing urbanization, these events play an important role in the ongoing flood risk management discussion and provoke serious risk to the public as well as to the insurance sector. However, this type of flood, remains a poorly documented phenomenon. To address this gap, Swedish Pluvial Modelling Analysis and Safety Handling (SPLASH) project aims to develop new methods and types of data that improve the possibility to value flood risk in Swedish municipalities by collaboration between different disciplines.

SPLASH project allows to investigating the impact of heavy precipitation along the entire risk modelling chain, ultimate needed for effective prevention. This study presents a pluvial flood catastrophe modelling framework to identify and assess hazard, exposure and vulnerability in urban context. An integrated approach is adopted by incorporating ‘rainfall-damage’ patterns, flood inundation modelling, vulnerability tools and risk management. The project is developed in the ‘OASIS Loss Modelling Framework’ platform, jointly with end-users from the public sector and the insurance industry.

The Swedish case study indicates that the framework presented can be considered as an important decision making tool, by establishing an area for collaboration between academia; insurance businesses and rescue services, to reduce long-term disaster risk in Sweden.