Flood insurance is a driver of population growth in European floodplains

Abstract

Future flood risk assessments typically focus on changing hazard conditions as a result of climate change, where flood exposure is assumed to remain static or develop according to exogenous scenarios. However, this study presents a method to project future riverine flood risk in Europe by simulating population growth in floodplains, where households’ settlement location decisions endogenously depend on environmental and institutional factors, including amenities associated with river proximity, riverine flood risk, and insurance against this risk. Our results show that population growth in European floodplains and, consequently, rising riverine flood risk are considerably higher when the dis-amenity caused by flood risk is offset by insurance. This outcome is particularly evident in countries where flood risk is covered collectively and notably less where premiums reflect the risk of individual households.