Heavy rain, storms, drought: extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe due to climate change. To systematically record and quantify the damage, the German Federal Environment Agency has commissioned INFRAS to develop a concept for a national damage register.
The floods in the Ahr Valley in July 2021 will go down in history as one of Germany's most devastating natural disasters. And as one of the most expensive. The insured losses alone are estimated at around 8.5 billion euros. The federal and state governments provided around 30 billion euros for reconstruction programs. It is not fully known how many costs extreme weather-related damage events cause in Germany every year because the damage has not yet been systematically recorded so far.
The German government has therefore decided to set up a national damage register for climate-related extreme weather events to better plan and justify adaptation measures to climate change. On the other hand, it will also make it easier to justify measures to reduce emissions. INFRAS has in collaboration with its German partner adelphi developed the prototype for such a cadastre.
Quality of various data sets checked
The concept is based on existing guidelines and practical examples from damage databases. Additionally, it is aligned with the needs of public and private sector stakeholders who were surveyed as part of the project. The concept focused on the most common types of damage and events: damage to buildings and infrastructure caused by heavy rainfall, flash floods and flooding, damage to agriculture caused by drought, effects on human health caused by heat and damage to ecosystems.
Data is available from various players – from insurance and reinsurance companies, from government institutions such as the German Weather Service or Deutsche Bahn, from federal offices and local authorities. However, they differ significantly in terms of scope and quality. «Well-prepared, consistent and nationally comparable data is the basis for a meaningful damage register», says Quirin Oberpriller, climate economist at INFRAS. «One focus of this project was therefore to analyse the potential data sources in detail and explore their benefits for the register.»
Starting with what's there
The developed register and the available data sets were tested using three case studies: a river flood on the Danube and Elbe in June 2013, the drought summers of 2018 and 2019 and the flash flood in the Ahrthal in July 2021. This showed that the data available is too poor. «The data is heterogeneous and incomplete. This means that extreme weather damage can only be mapped incompletely», says Oberpriller.
Another important aspect of the project was climate attribution – the differentiation between damage that can be attributed to climate change and damage that would have occurred even without climate change. It has been shown that the current state of research does not yet permit the reliable derivation of an attribution factor.
Despite these limitations, the concept developed by INFRAS will be implemented. «It is important to start with what is there and then gradually improve and expand the register», says Oberpriller. The researchers provide specific recommendations on how the prototype can be further developed in the future.
Further Informationen
Further INFRAS projects on this topic:
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