Movatterモバイル変換

[0]ホーム
URL:

Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Advertisement

Nature Climate Change
  • Letter
  • Published:

Global flood risk under climate change

Nature Climate Changevolume 3, pages816–821 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

A warmer climate would increase the risk of floods1. So far, only a few studies2,3 have projected changes in floods on a global scale. None of these studies relied on multiple climate models. A few global studies4,5 have started to estimate the exposure to flooding (population in potential inundation areas) as a proxy of risk, but none of them has estimated it in a warmer future climate. Here we present global flood risk for the end of this century based on the outputs of 11 climate models. A state-of-the-art global river routing model with an inundation scheme6 was employed to compute river discharge and inundation area. An ensemble of projections under a new high-concentration scenario7 demonstrates a large increase in flood frequency in Southeast Asia, Peninsular India, eastern Africa and the northern half of the Andes, with small uncertainty in the direction of change. In certain areas of the world, however, flood frequency is projected to decrease. Another larger ensemble of projections under four new concentration scenarios7 reveals that the global exposure to floods would increase depending on the degree of warming, but interannual variability of the exposure may imply the necessity of adaptation before significant warming.

This is a preview of subscription content,access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Subscription info for Japanese customers

We have a dedicated website for our Japanese customers. Please go tonatureasia.com to subscribe to this journal.

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

￥ 4,980

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Projected change in flood frequency.
Figure 2: Projected return period of the 20C 100-year flood in 21C at the outlets of 29 selected river basins.
Figure 3: Global flood exposure for the 20C 100-year flood, or above, in millions.

Similar content being viewed by others

ArticleOpen access30 November 2022

References

  1. IPCCManaging the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (eds Field, C. B. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012).

  2. Milly, P., Wetherald, R., Dunne, K. & Delworth, T. Increasing risk of great floods in a changing climate.Nature415, 514–517 (2002).

    Article CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Hirabayashi, Y., Kanae, S., Emori, S., Oki, T. & Kimoto, M. Global projections of changing risks of floods and droughts in a changing climate.Hydrol. Sci. J.53, 754–772 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Jongman, B., Ward, P. J. & Aerts, J. C. J. H. Global exposure to river and coastal flooding: Long term trends and changes.Glob. Environ. Change22, 823–835 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Peduzzi, P., Dao, H., Herold, C. & Mouton, F. Assessing global exposure and vulnerability towards natural hazards: The Disaster Risk Index.Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.9, 1149–1159 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Yamazaki, D., Kanae, S., Kim, H. & Oki, T. A physically based description of floodplain inundation dynamics in a global river routing model.Wat. Resour. Res.47, W04501 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Van Vuuren, D. et al. The representative concentration pathways: an overview.Climatic Change109, 5–31 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Seneviratne, S. et al. inManaging the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (eds Field, C. B. et al.) 109–230 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  9. Meehl, G. et al. The WCRP CMIP3 multimodel dataset: A new era in climate change research.Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc.88, 1383–1394 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Taylor, K., Stouffer, R. & Meehl, G. An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design.Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc.93, 485–498 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Moss, R. et al. The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment.Nature463, 747–756 (2010).

    Article CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Dankers, R. & Feyen, L. Climate change impact on flood hazard in Europe: An assessment based on high-resolution climate simulations.J. Geophys. Res.113, D19105 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Kim, H., Yeh, P., Oki, T. & Kanae, S. Role of rivers in the seasonal variations of terrestrial water storage over global basins.Geophys. Res. Lett.36, L17402 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Lehner, B., Döll, P., Alcamo, J., Henrichs, T. & Kaspar, F. Estimating the impact of global change on flood and drought risks in Europe: A continental, integrated analysis.Climatic Change75, 273–299 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Hirabayashi, Y. & Kanae, S. First estimate of the future global population at risk of flooding.Hydrol. Res. Lett.3, 6–9 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. UN Population DivisionWorld Population Prospects: The 2011 Revision (United Nations, 2011).

  17. Arora, V. & Boer, G. A variable velocity flow routing algorithm for GCMs.J. Geophys. Res.104, 30965–30979 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Yamazaki, D. et al. Analysis of the water level dynamics simulated by a global river model: A case study in the Amazon River.Wat. Resour. Res.48 (in the press, 2012).

  19. Gumbel, E. The return period of flood flows.Ann. Math. Stat.12, 163–190 (1941).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Hosking, J. & Wallis, J.Regional Frequency Analysis: An Approach Based on L-moments (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  21. Vogel, R. The probability plot correlation coefficient test for the normal, lognormal and Gumbel distributional hypotheses.Wat. Resour. Res.22, 587–590 (1986).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This paper was financially supported by the Funding Program for Next-Generation World-Leading Researchers, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, CREST of Japan Science and Technology Agency, and the Environmental Research and Technology Development Fund (S-10, ICA-RUS) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modelling groups for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP the US Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Engineering Innovation, The University of Tokyo, 2-11-16 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

    Yukiko Hirabayashi, Roobavannan Mahendran, Sujan Koirala, Lisako Konoshima & Satoshi Watanabe

  2. School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK

    Dai Yamazaki

  3. Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Tokyo 153-8505, Meguro-ku, Japan

    Hyungjun Kim

  4. Department of Civil Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 O-okayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan

    Shinjiro Kanae

Authors
  1. Yukiko Hirabayashi
  2. Roobavannan Mahendran
  3. Sujan Koirala
  4. Lisako Konoshima
  5. Dai Yamazaki
  6. Satoshi Watanabe
  7. Hyungjun Kim
  8. Shinjiro Kanae

Contributions

R.M., S. Koirala, D.Y. and H.K. carried out the simulation and analysis. L.K. and S. Koirala carried out the exposure estimation. S.W. contributed to the data archive. Y.H. and S. Kanae designed the research. Y.H., S. Koirala and S. Kanae co-wrote the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence toYukiko Hirabayashi orShinjiro Kanae.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hirabayashi, Y., Mahendran, R., Koirala, S.et al. Global flood risk under climate change.Nature Clim Change3, 816–821 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1911

Download citation

This article is cited by

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

Advertisement

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for theNature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox.Sign up for Nature Briefing
[8]ページ先頭
©2009-2026 Movatter.jp