London, June 1, 2010 - The Willis Research Network, in conjunction with several of its academic members including Princeton and Bristol, is co-ordinating a major research project into urban flood risk. The study, which is expected to deliver its first set of results this summer, comes after severe floods wrecked homes and infrastructure in major cities of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Serbia and Slovakia.

“The damages resulting from last month’s heavy rainfall in Central Eastern Europe have once again highlighted the need for a better understanding of flood correlation and a better representation of the urban environment in catastrophe models,” said Dr Alexandros Ntelekos, a senior catastrophe analyst of Willis Analytics and the WRN’s flood group research coordinator.

The event also calls into question the reliability of historical data to evaluate risk. Hungary, for example, suffered three 1 in 100 year floods in quick succession, which occurred in March 1999, 2000 and 2001. “The study of potential changes in the frequency and intensity of floods under a changing climate and land use patterns is a core theme of the WRN’s flood group”, said Dr. Ntelekos. In each case, the floods were confined to the upper reaches of the river Tisza in eastern Hungary, though significant damage occurred to roads, bridges and homes.

Dr Ntelekos is coordinating the WRN’s research of the spatial correlation of flooding in Central Eastern Europe, the US and elsewhere. He also coordinates the WRN’s efforts on advancing the understanding of urban floods. Current catastrophe models often operate on a country-basis and have simplistic representations of the processes involved in urban flooding. As they May events in Central Eastern Europe suggest, a single flooding event can impact several countries simultaneously while losses in cities can be quite challenging to model.

The floods that swept across Central Eastern Europe last month caused six casualties in southern Poland and one in the Czech Republic. The rains also caused rivers to burst their banks and flood waters to inundate low-lying homes and roads. Utility networks, including critical power supplies, were disrupted in some areas, while core infrastructure facilities such as railway lines were also affected. In the Czech Republic an estimated 2,000 homes suffered power disruptions. Insurance companies estimate damages in Hungary alone could range from approximately US$17 to US$27million.

For more information on the WRN's flood research, visit the Research and Publications sections of this website. 

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