Flooding and the accompanying economic losses are a major concern. However, it is important to know exactly how much of this is related to climate change and how much is caused by other factors, particularly societal influences. Adapting to climate change is a major European policy concern and forms part of the Second European Climate Change programme (ECCP II).
In 2009, a white paper was adopted that outlined options for adaptation. In order to develop effective adaptation policy, it is necessary to understand the impacts of climate change as far as possible. Natural disasters are the result of interactions between nature and society. Understanding the process that lead to natural disasters is a complex matter that is being studied with different approaches in current research.
Economic losses from floods have shown a positive upward trend over the years, which may suggest that climate change has an influence. However, studies do not tend to take into account socio-economic factors, such as changes in population or the wealth in vulnerable areas. When the influence of socio-economic factors on floods is filtered out, the data suggest there is no significant increase in economic losses

Normalised flood losses in Europe from major flood disasters

The grey line represents the average annual flood losses of the overall period.
Source: Barredo, J.I. (2009) Normalised flood losses in Europe: 1970-2006. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. 9: 97-104

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