Natural Hazards and Earth System Science www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net 1561-8633 1684-9981 9 3 2009 10.5194/nhess-9-913-2009 http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/913/2009/ http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/913/2009/nhess-9-913-2009.html http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/913/2009/nhess-9-913-2009.pdf 913 925 2009-06-23 The Swiss flood and landslide damage database 1972–2007 N. Hilker nadine.hilker@wsl.ch A. Badoux C. Hegg Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland In Switzerland, floods, debris flows, landslides and rockfalls cause damage every year affecting property values, infrastructure, forestry and agriculture. As population and settled areas have increased, the damage potential has also become greater. Information about natural hazard events that caused any damage is needed for hazard mapping and further decision making. This is why the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL has been systematically collecting information on flood and mass movement damage in a database since 1972. The estimated direct financial damage as well as fatalities and injured people have been documented using press articles as the main source of information. The database can provide answers to questions related to the temporal and spatial distribution of damage, natural hazard processes and the corresponding weather conditions. This study describes the data collection methods used and the key analyses of data from 1972 to 2007. Furthermore, the benefits and drawbacks of the database are discussed. In Switzerland, naturally triggered floods, debris flows, landslides and rockfalls have caused financial damage amounting to nearly 8000 million Euros in total within the last 36 years (taking inflation into account). These processes have mainly affected pre– and central alpine regions and their total costs of damage are dominated by a few major events. Nearly one quarter of the costs result from August 2005 when large parts of Northern Switzerland were affected by flooding. We must assume that major events like this are not unique and that similar events will occur again in future. Barnolas, M. and Llasat, M. C.: A flood geodatabase and its climatological applications: the case of Catalonia for the last century, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 7, 271–281, 2007. Bezzola, G. R. and Hegg, C. (Eds.): Ereignisanalyse Hochwasser 2005, Teil 1 – Prozesse, Schäden und erste Einordnung, Bundesamt für Umwelt BAFU, Eidg. Forschungsanstalt WSL, Umwelt-Wissen Nr. 0707, 215 pp., 2007. Blong, R.: Issues in Risk Science, Natural Hazards Risk Assessment: An Australian Perspective, Benfield Hazard Research Centre, 27 pp., 2004. Bundesamt für Wasser und Geologie BWG: Hochwasser 1999 – Analyse der Ereignisse, Studienbericht Nr. 10, BBL/EDMZ, Bern, 148 pp., 2000. Bundesamt für Wasser und Geologie BWG: Hochwasser 2000 – Ereignisanalyse/Fallbeispiele, Berichte des BWG, Serie Wasser, Nr. 2, BBL, Bern, 248 pp., 2002. Bundesamt für Wasserwirtschaft BWW (Ed.): Ursachenanalyse der Hochwasser 1987 – Schlussbericht, Bundesamt für Umwelt, Wald und Landschaft; Landeshydrologie und -geologie, Mitteilung des Bundesamtes für Wasserwirtschaft, Nr. 5, 47 pp., 1991. Burren, S. and Eyer, W.: StorMe – Ein informatikgestützter Ereigniskataster der Schweiz, Internationales Symposion, Interpraevent 2000, Tagungspublikation, 1, 25–35, 2000. Changnon, S. D.: Measures of Economic Impacts of Weather Extremes: Getting Better but Far from What Is Needed – A Call for Action, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 84, 1231–1235, 2003. Chau, K. T., Sze, Y. L., Fung, M. K., Wong, W. Y., Fong, E. L., and Chan, L. C. P.: Landslide hazard analysis for Hong Kong using landslide inventory and GIS, Comput. Geosci., 30, 429–443, 2004. Chau, K. T., Wong, R. H. C., Liu, J., and Lee, C. F.: Rockfall Hazard Analysis for Hong Kong Based on Rockfall Inventory, Rock Mech. Rock Eng., 36(5), 383–408, 2003. Creighton, R. (Ed.): Landslides in Ireland – A Report of the Irish Landslides Working Group, Dublin, Geological Survey of Ireland, Irish Landslides Working Group, 109 pp., 2006. DesInventar: http://www.desinventar.org/en, last access: 21 August 2008. Destatis – Federal Statistical Office of Germany: http://www.destatis.de, last access: 11 September 2008. Devoli, G., Morales, A., and Høeg, K.: Historical landslides in Nicaragua – collection and analysis of data, Landslides, 4, 5–18, 2007. Downton, M. W. and Pielke Jr., R. A.: How Accurate are Disaster Loss Data? The Case of U.S. Flood Damage, Nat. Hazards, 35, 211–228, 2005. Federal Office for Water and Geology FOWG: Flood Control at Rivers and Streams – Guidelines of the FOWG, Berne, 72 pp., 2001. Federal Statistical Office FSO and Federal Office for the Environment FOEN: Swiss Environmental Statistics: A Brief Guide 2008, available at: http://www.bfs.admin.ch, 40 pp., 2008. Frei, C., Schär, C., Lüthi, D., and Davies, H. C.: Heavy precipitation processes in a warmer climate, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 1431–1434, 1998. Gaspar, J. L., Goulart, C., Queiroz, G., Silveira, D., and Gomes, A.: Dynamic structure and data sets of a GIS database for geological riskanalysis in the Azores volcanic islands, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 4, 233–242, 2004. Guha-Sapir, D. and Below, R.: The quality and accuracy of disaster data: A comparative analyse of three global data sets, Working paper prepared for the Disaster Management facility, World Bank, CRED, WHO Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, University of Louvain School of Medicine, Brussels, 18 pp., 2002. Guzzetti, F., Stark, C. P., and Salvati, P.: Evaluation of Flood and Landslide Risk to the Population of Italy, Environ. Manage., 36(1), 15–36, 2005. Guzzetti, F. and Tonelli, G.: Information system on hydrological and geomorphological catastrophes in Italy (SICI): a tool for managing landslide and flood hazards, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 4, 213–232, 2004. Hegg, C., Gerber, D., and Röthlisberger, G.: Unwetterschaden-Datenbank der Schweiz, in: Internationales Symposion Interpraevent 2000 – Villach/Österreich, Tagungspublikation, Band 1, 37–48, 2000. Hilker, N., Aller, D., and Hegg, C.: Schäden, in: Bezzola, G. R. and Hegg C. (Eds.): Ereignisanalyse Hochwasser 2005, Teil 1 – Prozesse, Schäden und erste Einordnung, Bundesamt für Umwelt BAFU, Eidg. Forschungsanstalt WSL, Umwelt-Wissen Nr. 0707, 127–148, 2007. Hilker, N., Badoux, A., and Hegg, C.: Unwetterschäden in der Schweiz im Jahre 2007, Wasser Energie Luft, 2, 115–123, 2008. Hübl, J., Kienholz, H., and Loipersberger A. (Eds.): DOMODIS – Documentation of Mountain Disasters (State of Discussion in the European Mountain Areas), Internationale Forschungsgesellschaft INTERPRAEVENT, Schriftenreihe 1, Handbuch 1, Klagenfurt, 36 pp., 2002. Jonkman, S. N.: Global Perspectives on Loss of Human Life Caused by Floods, Nat. Hazards, 34, 151–175, 2005. Jordan, J. P. and Petrascheck, A.: Les crues de 1987 en Suisse, leurs consequences et enseignements – The 1987 Floods in Switzerland, consequences and lessons learnt, Houille Blanche, 6, 28–32, 2004. Komac, M., Fajfar, D., Ravnik, D., and Ribièiè, M.: Slovenian National Landslide DataBase – A promising approach to slope mass movement prevention plan, Geologija, 50(2), 393–402, 2007. Marsh, T. and Hannaford, J.: The summer 2007 floods in England and Wales – a hydrological appraisal, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, 32 pp., 2007. Merz, B.: Hochwasserrisiken – Grenzen und Möglichkeiten der Risikoabschätzung, Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (Nägele u. Obermiller), Stuttgart, 334 pp., 2006. Merz, B., Kreibich, H., Thieken, A., and Schmidtke, R.: Estimation uncertainty of direct monetary flood damage to buildings, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 4, 153–163, 2004. Mitchell, J. K.: European river floods in a changing world, Risk Anal., 23(3), 567–574, 2003. Munich Re Group: NatCat\textitSERVICE – A guide to the Munich Re database for natural catastrophes, Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft, Munich, 23 pp., 2003. Munich Re Group: Topics Geo – Natural catastrophes 2007: Analyses, assessments, positions, Knowledge series, Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft, Munich, 52 pp., 2008. National Research Council: The Impacts of Natural Disasters: A Framework for Loss Estimation, Committee on Assessing the Costs of Natural Disasters, National Academy Press, Washington DC, 63 pp., 1999. OcCC (Eds.): Extremereignisse und Klimaänderung, Bern, 88 pp., 2003. OcCC and ProClim (Eds.): Klimaänderung und die Schweiz 2050 – Erwartete Auswirkungen auf Umwelt, Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft, Bern, 168 pp., 2007. Ohmura, A. and Wild, M.: Is the Hydrological Cycle Accelerating?, Science, 298, 1345–1346, 2002. Petley, D. N., Dunning, S. A., and Rosser, N. J.: The analysis of global landslide risk through the creation of a database of worldwide landslide fatalities, in: Landslide Risk Management, edited by: Hungr, O., Fell, R., Couture, R., and Eberhardt E., A. A. Balkema Publisher, Taylor & Francis Group, London, 367–374, 2005. Petrow, T., Thieken, A. H., Kreibich, H., Bahlburg, C. H., and Merz, B.: Improvements on Flood Alleviation in Germany: Lessons Learned from the Elbe Flood in August 2002, Environ. Manage., 38, 717–732, 2006. Rebetez, M. and Reinhard, M.: Monthly air temperature trends in Switzerland 1901–2000 and 1975–2004, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 91, 27–34, 2008. Röthlisberger, G.: Chronik der Unwetterschäden in der Schweiz, Berichte der Eidg. Forschungsanstalt WSL, Birmensdorf, 330, 122 pp., 1991. Roulin, E.: Skill and relative economic value of medium-range hydrological ensemble predictions, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 11, 725–737, 2007. Schmid, F., Fraefel, M., and Hegg, C.: Unwetterschäden in der Schweiz 1972–2002: Verteilung, Ursachen, Entwicklung, Wasser Energie Luft, 1/2, 21–28, 2004. Smith, K. and Ward, R.: Floods – Physical Processes and Human Impacts, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 394 pp., 1998. Swiss Re: Natural catastrophes and reinsurance, Swiss Reinsurance Company, Zurich, 48 pp., 2003. Swiss Re: Natural catastrophes and man-made disasters in 2007: high losses in Europe, sigma, No 1/2008, Swiss Reinsurance Company, Zurich, 48 pp., 2008. Thieken, A. H., Petrow, T., Kreibich, H., and Merz, B.: Insurability and Mitigation of Flood Losses in Private Households in Germany, Risk Anal., 26(2), 383–395, 2006. Tognacca, C., Kolb, R., and Eberli, J.: Entlastungsmassnahmen – Fallbeispiel Engelberger Aa, in: Ereignisanalyse Hochwasser 2005, Teil 2 – Analyse von Prozessen, Massnahmen und Gefahrengrundlagen, edited by: Bezzola, G. R. and Hegg, C., Bundesamt für Umwelt BAFU, Eidg. Forschungsanstalt WSL, Umwelt-Wissen Nr 0825, 259–273, 2008. Tropeano, D. and Turconi, L.: Using Historical Documents for Landslide, Debris Flow and Stream Flood Prevention. Applications in Northern Italy, Nat. Hazards, 31, 663–679, 2004. Tschirky, F., Brabec, B. and Kern, M.: Lawinenunfälle in den Schweizer Alpen - Eine statistische Zusammenstellung mit den Schwerpunkten Verschüttung, Rettungsmethoden und Rettungsgeräte, in: Durch Lawinen verursachte Unfälle im Gebiet der Schweizer Alpen, edited by: Tschirky, F., Vorabdruck 2. Kapitel: Winterbericht des Eidg. Institutes SLF, Davos, 63/2000, 125–136, 2000. Tschoegl, L., Below, R., and Guha-Sapir, D.: An Analytical Review of Selected Data Sets on Natural Disasters and Impacts, Paper prepared for the UNDP/CRED Workshop on improving Compilation of Reliable Data on Disaster Occurrence and Impact, UNDP/CRED, Bangkok, 21 pp., 2006. UK Statistics Authority: http://www.statistics.gov.uk, last access: 11 September 2008. Zappa, M., Rotach, M. W., Arpagaus, M., Dorninger, M., Hegg, C., Montani, A., Ranzi, R., Ament, F., Germann, U., Grossi, G., Jaun, S., Rossa, A., Vogt, S., Walser, A., Wehrhan, J., and Wunram, C.: MAP D-PHASE: real-time demonstration of hydrological ensemble prediction systems, Atmos. Sci. Let., 9(2), 80–87, doi:10.1002/asl.183, 2008.