Future earthquake and flood risk in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

What is it about?

Floods and earthquakes affect the economy and population of countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Future changes in these countries' economies and population will change the impacts of floods and earthquakes. In addition, future changes in climate will change how often flooding occurs. We assume that earthquake occurrence won't change with climate changes. We show how much the economies and populations of these countries are affected by floods and earthquakes in 2015, 2030 and 2080. However, as we don't know for certain how the economies, population and climate will change in the future, we show result for a variety of scenarios for future economies, population and climate. We assess how future changes in the economy and population affect future flood risk using changes in earthquake risk, and assume the remaining change is caused by changes in climate. We suggest that for some countries the population affected by floods can increase even with a decrease in population, or the population affected by floods and decrease even with an increase in population, if the future change in flood hazard is sufficiently large.

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Why is it important?

Changes in earthquake risk are a function of changes in population and GDP. Changes in flood risk are a function of changes in population and GDP as well as changes in climate. The change in earthquake risk can be used to account for the effect for changes in exposure and allow the influence of climate on flood risk to be assessed.