Adaptation to natural disasters (floods, hurricanes etc.)
In this lecture, we cover the second type of direct impacts : natural disasters. Climate change can induce natural disasters in a number of ways : hurricanes, river floods, coastal floods, landslides, wildfires etc.
Adaptation to these impacts imposes changes in the way traditional natural risk prevention is done. this is especially due to the progressive nature of climate change, and to the quantitative uncertainties surrounding the exact magnitude of its impacts.
Required reading
How climate change affects extreme weather around the world (2022).
Natural disasters
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Natural disasters (1)
Natural disasters (2)
To know more
- An article by Carbon Brief about what the 2021 IPCC report says about extreme weather and climate change
- The articles on the effects of climate change, on NASA website
- a 2021 UN report about the increase in weather-related disasters since 50 years.
- On storm surges you can see :
- As a note: Hurricane Sandy, in 2012, caused destructions in New York City mainly due to its storm surge (local sea level rise during the hurricane, making the sea go inland and cause floods). Hurricane Ida, in 2021, caused destructions mainly due to its intense rainfall that overwhelmed the sewers, leading to pluvial flooding. Adaptation policies to both phenomena are different. See for instance here for an analysis.
Adaptation to natural disasters
Download the slides here
Overview
Hazard
Vulnerability
Exposure
To know more
- About the economic impacts and adaptation policies: How to address infrastructure interdependencies when adapting to climate change
- [in French] The role of urbanization trends in flood risk exposure
- Examples of buildings and districts designed to be flood-resilient :
- Description of the systems of insurance against natural disasters in several countries
- [in French] another article on the same topic, and an op-ed in Le Monde about the limits of national solidarity to cope with climate-related disasters.
- Finally, as a reference, a manual on disaster risk management and climate change in cities