New estimates of flood exposure in developing countries using high-resolution population data.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31000721.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-09282-y and PMC identifier 6472407.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Current estimates of global flood exposure are made using datasets that distribute population counts homogenously across large lowland floodplain areas. When intersected with simulated water depths, this results in a significant mis-estimation. Here, we use new highly resolved population information to show that, in reality, humans make more rational decisions about flood risk than current demographic data suggest. In the new data, populations are correctly represented as risk-averse, largely avoiding obvious flood zones. The results also show that existing demographic datasets struggle to represent concentrations of exposure, with the total exposed population being spread over larger areas. In this analysis we use flood hazard data from a ~90 m resolution hydrodynamic inundation model to demonstrate the impact of different population distributions on flood exposure calculations for 18 developing countries spread across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The results suggest that many published large-scale flood exposure estimates may require significant revision.