Flood risk is growing at an alarming rate across the world, posing increasingly complex challenges to socioeconomic systems, infrastructure, and the environment. According to Marsh McLennan estimates, 18% of the global population is currently threatened by flooding, and even limiting global warming to 2 °C would cause this percentage to double. Similarly, the impacts of flooding on infrastructure are already visible and set to grow over time, with power plants, international airports, and international ports increasingly under strain.
Recent flood disasters have exposed the severe inadequacies of risk management practices in both high- and low-income countries, highlighting how current approaches to resilience are unable to cope with today’s levels of risk, let alone keep pace with a rapidly escalating threat. Despite technological advancements, innovations in risk transfer, and the availability of a growing portfolio of risk management tools, the costs of flooding have continued to rise, with only 17% of global economic losses being insured between 2007 and 2021.
