Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 1659–1682, 2017 https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-1659-2017 © Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Surface water floods in Switzerland: what insurance claim records tell us about the damage in space and time Daniel B. Bernet1, Volker Prasuhn2, and Rolf Weingartner1 1Institute of Geography & Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research & Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland 2Agroscope, Research Division, Agroecology and Environment, Zurich, Switzerland Correspondence to: Daniel B. Bernet (
[email protected]) Received: 6 April 2017 – Discussion started: 10 April 2017 Revised: 4 August 2017 – Accepted: 23 August 2017 – Published: 29 September 2017 Abstract. Surface water floods (SWFs) have received in- trend between 1993 and 2013. We conclude that SWFs are creasing attention in the recent years. Nevertheless, we still in fact a highly relevant process in Switzerland that should know relatively little about where, when and why such floods receive similar attention like fluvial flood hazards. Moreover, occur and cause damage, largely due to a lack of data but as SWF damage almost always coincides with fluvial flood to some degree also because of terminological ambiguities. damage, we suggest considering SWFs, like fluvial floods, as Therefore, in a preparatory step, we summarize related terms integrated processes of our catchments. and identify the need for unequivocal terminology across dis- ciplines and international boundaries in order to bring the sci- ence together. Thereafter, we introduce a large (n D 63117), 1 Introduction long (10–33 years) and representative (48 % of all Swiss buildings covered) data set of spatially explicit Swiss insur- In Switzerland, there seems to be a growing awareness that ance flood claims.