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Historical development and future outlook of the flood damage potential of residential areas in the Alpine Lech Valley (Austria) between 1971 and 2030

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Abstract

In the recent past, the Alpine Lech valley (Austria) experienced three damaging flood events within 6 years despite the various structural flood protection measures in place. For an improved flood risk management, the analysis of flood damage potentials is a crucial component. Since the expansion of built-up areas and their associated values is seen as one of the main drivers of rising flood losses, the goal of this study is to analyze the spatial development of the assets at risk, particularly of residential areas, due to land use changes over a historic period (since 1971) and up to possible shifts in future (until 2030). The analysis revealed that the alpine study area was faced to remarkable land use changes like urbanization and the decline of agriculturally used grassland areas. Although the major agglomeration of residential areas inside the flood plains took place before 1971, a steady growth of values at risk can still be observed until now. Even for the future, the trend is ongoing, but depends very much on the assumed land use scenario and the underlying land use policy. Between 1971 and 2006, the annual growth rate of the damage potential of residential areas amounted to 1.1 % (‘constant values,’ i.e., asset values at constant prices of reference year 2006) or 3.0 % (‘adjusted values,’ i.e., asset values adjusted by GDP increase at constant prices of reference year 2006) for three flood scenarios. For the projected time span between 2006 and 2030, a further annual increase by 1.0 % (‘constant values’) or even 4.2 % (‘adjusted values’) may be possible when the most extreme urbanization scenario ‘Overall Growth’ is considered. Although socio-economic development is regarded as the main driver for increasing flood losses, our analysis shows that settlement development does not preferably take place within flood prone areas.

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Acknowledgments

This study was performed in frame of the FloodTimeS project, which is funded by the ‘Klima- und Energiefonds’ (Contract No. A963631) and is conducted in the framework of the Austrian Climate Research Program (ACRP). The authors want to thank the Tyrolean Government for the provision of the spatial data and orthophotographs. Furthermore, Heinz Stiefelmeyer from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment, and Water Management in Vienna is gratefully acknowledged for the permission to use the HORA data as well as Matthias Huttenlau from the alpS GmbH in Innsbruck for the provision of the insurance values for residential buildings and household contents. Lastly, we thank the two anonymous referees for their constructive comments and improvement of the paper.

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  1. Institute of Geography, University of Innsbruck, Innrain 52, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Holger Cammerer

  2. Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476, Potsdam, Germany

    Annegret H. Thieken

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Correspondence to Holger Cammerer.

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Cammerer, H., Thieken, A.H. Historical development and future outlook of the flood damage potential of residential areas in the Alpine Lech Valley (Austria) between 1971 and 2030. Reg Environ Change 13, 999–1012 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-013-0407-9

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