A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE ON CURRENT CHALLENGES IN THE ANALYSIS OF INLAND FLOOD RISKS

摘要

Flooding poses a threat to many millions of the citizens of Europe. In the Netherlands more than half of the population live below mean sea level. In the UK about 10% of the population lives in areas of flood risk; and in Hungary about a quarter of the population live on the floodplain of the Danube and its tributaries. Although the greatest loss of life in Europe in recent decades occurred from the 1953 North Sea floods, which caused about 2500 deaths across the UK, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, flooding remains the most widely distributed natural hazard in Europe leading to significant economic and social impacts. Concentrations of fatalities in river floods are associated with flash flooding events, such as Vaison-la-Romaine (1992), and the mudflows at Sarno (1997). Recent internationally and nationally significant floods have occurred, for example, in Slovak Republic (1993 and 1997), the Czech Republic (1997, 1998 and 2002), Poland and Germany (1997, 2002), Britain (1998, 2000), Austria (1991, 1997, 1999, 2002), Eastern Slovakia and Hungary (1998 and 2001) and France (2002 and 2003).