Floods have become less deadly: an analysis of global flood fatalities 1975–2022

One of our PDPC Board Members, Bas Jonkman, Professor of Hydraulic Engineering at Delft University published a new article concerning floods. This paper was published in cooperation with his colleagues Alex Curran and Laurens Bouwer.

Floods have become less deadly over the past decades. The paper published in Natural Hazards analyzed the impact of 5,000 flood events during the period 1975-2022. Despite population growth and increasing flood hazards, the average number of fatalities per event has decreased over time. Yet, we also found that mortality fractions per event have decreased over time for middle- and high-middle-income countries, but increased for low-income countries. This work highlights the importance of continuing and expanding risk reduction and adaptation efforts.

If you are interested in reading the entire article, please follow this link.