Flood vulnerability analysis and climatic change: Towards a European methodology

This paper describes the EUROFLOOD project, being sponsored by the European Commission under its EPOCH programme to investigate the nature and extent of flood hazards in Europe. The project is designed to develop data sets and computational systems within a number of project modules. These include developing regional scale computer programs for hazard and vulnerability analysis, investigating the full flood impacts in different European countries, and analysing the effectiveness of flood warning systems. Further modules evaluate the interface between the public and flood alleviation schemes, modelling the safety aspects of such schemes in different countries, and the impacts that sea level rise might have on required rates of infrastructure investment. The paper presents an outline of the overall framework to be used, examples of progress that has been made to date, and a synthesis of the policy implications that could arise from the project’s completion.