Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 14, 1245–1255, 2014 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/14/1245/2014/ doi:10.5194/nhess-14-1245-2014 © Author(s) 2014. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Increasing flood exposure in the Netherlands: implications for risk financing B. Jongman, E. E. Koks, T. G. Husby, and P. J. Ward Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Correspondence to: B. Jongman (
[email protected]) Received: 19 December 2013 – Published in Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss.: 9 January 2014 Revised: 5 April 2014 – Accepted: 17 April 2014 – Published: 23 May 2014 Abstract. The effectiveness of disaster risk management and and 2012 (Munich Re, 2013). For many world regions, re- financing mechanisms depends on an accurate assessment of search suggests that the main driver of increases in observed current and future hazard exposure. The increasing availabil- flood losses over the past few decades is increased physi- ity of detailed data offers policy makers and the insurance cal and economic exposure (i.e. the assets and values lo- sector new opportunities to understand trends in risk, and to cated in flood-prone areas), due to the growth of popula- make informed decisions on ways to deal with these trends. tion and wealth in flood-prone areas (e.g. Field et al., 2012; In this paper we show how comprehensive property level Bouwer, 2013; Hallegatte et al., 2013; Jongman et al., 2014). information can be used for the assessment of exposure to The increasing costs of flood disasters have large nega- flooding on a national scale, and how this information pro- tive economic and political consequences in many countries vides valuable input to discussions on possible risk financing (Bouwer et al., 2007; Mechler et al., 2010), and challenge the practices.