The impact of intense rainfall on insurance losses in two Swedish cities

• While a major part of previous research in the field of flood damage has focused on water depth as the most important causal factor, little attention has been paid to the role of rainfall intensity. As a test, this paper used correlation and regression analyses to investigate rainfall intensity as a factor affecting flood damage. For a time period of 15 years, the relationship between insurance losses caused by floods and rainfall intensity data from rain gauges were examined in two Swedish cities. Another objective was to find an approach for damage functions based on rainfall intensity as explanatory variable. Using linear regression, two approaches with considerable high degrees of explanation were found – one based on an exponential function and one on a power function. Using a lower limit for rainfall intensity, the approaches reached degrees of explanation between 30 and 78 %. From this study it was concluded that rainfall intensity during the summer months and the occurrence of insurance damages per day caused by floods were correlated and further that rainfall intensity has a great potential to explain urban flood damages. In the future, additional studies are needed to validate the proposed methods and integrate other flood damage affecting factors in the approach.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Annan geovetenskap och miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Other Earth and Related Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

flash flood

flood damage

flood damage function

insured flood loss

rainfallintensity

urban flood

skyfall

översvämningar

regnintensitet

försäkringsskador

Risk and Environmental Studies

Risk- och miljöstudier

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)