The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Willis Research Network, 51 Lime Street, London EC3M 7DQ, UK.
Sci Rep. 2017 Feb 2;7:41609. doi: 10.1038/srep41609.
The most recent decades have witnessed record breaking losses associated with U.S. landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs). Flood-related damages represent a large portion of these losses, and although storm surge is typically the main focus in the media and of warnings, much of the TC flood losses are instead freshwater-driven, often extending far inland from the landfall locations. Despite this actuality, knowledge of TC freshwater flood risk is still limited. Here we provide for the first time a comprehensive assessment of the TC freshwater flood risk from the full set of all significant flood events associated with U.S. landfalling TCs from 2001 to 2014. We find that the areas impacted by freshwater flooding are nearly equally divided between coastal and inland areas. We determine the statistical relationship between physical hazard and residential economic impact at a community level for the entire country. These results allow us to assess the potential future changes in TC freshwater flood risk due to changing climate pattern and urbanization in a more heavily populated U.S. Findings have important implications for flood risk management, insurance and resilience.
最近几十年，美国登陆的热带气旋（TC）造成了创纪录的损失。洪水相关的损失占这些损失的很大一部分，尽管风暴潮通常是媒体和警报的主要关注点，但大部分 TC 洪水损失是由淡水驱动的，通常从登陆地点向内陆延伸很远。尽管如此，人们对 TC 淡水洪水风险的认识仍然有限。在这里，我们首次全面评估了 2001 年至 2014 年期间与美国登陆 TC 相关的所有重大洪水事件所带来的 TC 淡水洪水风险。我们发现，受淡水洪灾影响的地区在沿海和内陆地区几乎平分秋色。我们确定了整个国家社区层面上物理危害和住宅经济影响之间的统计关系。这些结果使我们能够评估由于气候变化模式和人口更密集的美国的城市化而导致的 TC 淡水洪水风险的潜在未来变化。这些发现对洪水风险管理、保险和弹性具有重要意义。
