Socio-economic impacts, characteristics, and perception of floods in the European Union and the Middle East and North Africa region

Floods represent the most common type of natural disaster worldwide, resulting in devastating socio-economic impacts. While much research has been conducted on flood impacts in the Global North, much less is known about how these impacts vary across regions with different economic and social conditions. Moreover, little is known about how measured impacts compare with public perception of flood risk, which is relevant for how populations respond to flood risk management measures. This study has two main objectives: 1) to quantify and compare flood impacts within and between the European Union (EU) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region using the Emergency Events Database EM-DAT and 2) to compare the recorded impacts with the public perception of flood risk within the EU with the results from the SP547 Eurobarometer survey. More floods were recorded in the EU, and they caused economic losses that were almost two times more important as a proportion of GDP. However, human impacts were nearly four times greater in the MENA region. The seasonality of floods and of their impacts varies strongly across regions, being more prevalent in summer in central and eastern Europe, in autumn in the western Mediterranean, and in autumn and winter in the eastern Mediterranean. The comparison between recorded impacts and public perceptions shows that flood risk is overestimated by the population in northern EU countries and underestimated in southern EU countries. Our results highlight the need for improved flood impact and flood perception data to facilitate flood research, especially in the MENA region where available data is limited yet the population is greatly impacted by flood disasters.