Advancing the economic and social perspectives of flood risk for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation

Abstract

Sound risk assessment is essential for developing effective disaster’s risk reduction and climate change adaptation policies. This thesis investigates social vulnerability and the economic cost of flood risk, which are indeed two significant components of risk. The thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of risk in the Po river basin (Northern Italy), including social vulnerability. Moreover the thesis presents an innovative integrated impact assessment model for ex-ante and ex-post economic analysis of disasters. The model is applied to two case studies. The ex-post analysis re-examines the economic damage of the 2000 Po river flood, including the assessment of the wider economic losses, generally omitted in disaster’s accountancy. The ex-ante analysis estimates the expected annual output losses under current and future climate in Italy at regional level, providing insights about the benefits of climate change adaptation. This document demonstrates that improved risk assessments are essential to mitigate risk and enhance adaptation.