Assessing Flood Impacts, Wetland Changes and Climate Adaptation in Europe: The CLIMSAVE Approach

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Abstract

This chapter presents the Coastal Fluvial Flood (CFFlood) meta-model that has been developed and integrated into a participatory integrated assessment tool to facilitate a two-way interactive process. The goal of the model is to allow users to explore flood impacts and adaptation options under a range of climate and socio-economic change scenarios in Europe. The tool enables users to understand the socio-economic flood impacts and wetland change/loss due to changes in model parameters within ranges that are designed to reflect future uncertainty. Changes in flood frequency due to changes in river flows and relative sea-level rise are used to determine the flood extent and depth, which are combined with information on urban land use, population density, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to estimate impacts. Wetland changes and losses in the floodplain are assessed considering three influencing factors of accommodation: space, sediment supply, and rate of relative sea-level rise. The benefits of a number of adaptation measures including flood protection upgrades, realignment of flood defenses, resilience measures, and mixed responses for reducing flood risks are assessed. Flood impact simulations show that future climate and socio-economic conditions significantly influence socio-economic impacts, especially when coastal flooding is increased due to sea-level rise. In contrast, impacts caused by fluvial flooding may decrease in Southern Europe and parts of Western Europe due to the decrease in precipitation. Incremental losses of coastal wetland habitats (i.e., saltmarsh and intertidal flats) are simulated with the increase of sea-level rise. Under high-end scenarios, impacts increase substantially unless there are corresponding adaptation efforts.

Keywords

Climate change Flood impacts Wetlands Integrated assessment Sea-level rise Adaptation 
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.School of Science and Computer Engineering, University of Houston Clear LakeHoustonUSA
  2. 2.Faculty of Engineering and the EnvironmentalTyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of SouthamptonSouthamptonUK

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