Abstract
Floods are the most important risk in the Mediterranean region, both due to their frequency and impact. Studies of historical floods show flood-rich periods that could be associated with climate causes, but there is also a certain growing trend as a result of changes in land use and increased vulnerability. If climate scenarios point to an increase in the torrentiality of precipitation, with longer dry periods and more intense rainfall, there is still a high level of uncertainty in their impact in floods. This paper addresses this issue, also considering the complex role of changes to hazards, vulnerability, exposure and capacity. It presents a synthesis of the state of the art, with particular incidence in the first results of MedECC and the most recent bibliography on floods trend. Conclusions show that floods in this region are mainly consequence of flash-flood events. A common positive trend of flash floods in the past probably due to land use changes and the occupation of flood-prone areas has been found (high confidence). The increase of convective precipitation could also justify this positive trend in the most recent period, in some regions (low confidence). Vulnerabilities to water related hazards are expected to be influenced by the future socio-economic conditions at the regional scale (medium confidence). Although expected changes in flood risks are not univocal, nor evenly distributed, flood impacts will increase in the entire Mediterranean region, mainly as a consequence of global changes in the catchments (land use, vulnerability, exposure), joined in the Northern part of the basin to the increase of heavy rainfalls (medium confidence).
Highlights
Floods are the natural risk with the greatest impact in the world both because of their frequency and the socioeconomic and environmental losses they produce, as in many cases they are linked to other phenomena such as landslides and/or severe weather
Aroca-Jiménez et al (2018) propose an Integrated Economic Vulnerability Index (IEVI) for urban areas, which essentially considers three components: 1) Exposure; 2) Sensitivity; 3) Resilience
The latest flood episodes that have affected the Spanish Mediterranean coast would be a call for reflection, given the influence that the Greenland thaw has on large-scale climate variability over the Mediterranean basin, partially associated with circulation patterns such as the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which control part of the moisture fluxes over the western and eastern Mediterranean basins (Tramblay and Hertig, 2018)
Summary
Floods are the natural risk with the greatest impact in the world both because of their frequency and the socioeconomic and environmental losses they produce, as in many cases they are linked to other phenomena such as landslides and/or severe weather. There are multiple factors that can influence these impacts, from the characteristics of the rainfall or water flow, to the available means of evacuating the population and raising awareness For this reason, we need to better understand the main drivers behind flood changes and the links between floods and climate and other factors (Merz et al, 2012). We need to better understand the main drivers behind flood changes and the links between floods and climate and other factors (Merz et al, 2012) Besides these aspects, which will be presented in the following chapters, the processes are not lineal and there are numerous related elements. Floods in the Mediterranean have the added complexity that they normally occur in small, ungauged basins in densely populated areas This is important both when studying the frequency and magnitude of floods, and to improve early warning systems. The following sections are devoted to trend and projection analysis, ending with the conclusions
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