Global Flood Cat now incorporates climate change scenarios, thanks to Fathom's integration.
In a significant stride towards climate adaptation, Fathom, a leading catastrophe modelling firm, has launched the Global Flood Catastrophe Model. This cutting-edge tool offers a dynamic, data-driven assessment of flood risk, providing vital information for insurers, investors, banks, planners, and various other stakeholders.
Dr Malcolm Haylock, Head of Catastrophe Modeling at Fathom, emphasises that climate change and urbanisation are the two most significant drivers of future flood risk. The model integrates multiple data sources and advanced analytics to capture higher flood risk areas often underestimated by traditional flood maps.
One of the key benefits of the Global Flood Catastrophe Model is the provision of more accurate and up-to-date flood risk data. For instance, the Transportation Planning Board’s use of Fathom data alongside FEMA revealed greater flooding risks for transit infrastructure than previously reported. This enhanced accuracy helps insurers and banks assess potential liabilities more realistically.
The model's dynamic and scenario-driven risk assessment capability allows stakeholders to evaluate how flood risks evolve over time, incorporating changing conditions such as climate change impacts, urban development, and sea level rise. This dynamic feature supports planning for future scenarios, facilitating smarter investments and infrastructure design.
Planners can identify vulnerable assets and populations, enabling targeted resilience measures and efficient allocation of adaptation funding. High-resolution flood risk insights inform decisions around large projects like stadium development or transit expansions, ensuring infrastructure can withstand future flood challenges.
Insurers gain clearer insight into potential losses from flood hazards, enabling refined underwriting, pricing models, and portfolio risk management. This can lead to cost savings, better capital allocation, and avoidance of under-insurance.
Banks and financial institutions can use dynamic flood risk data to meet evolving climate-related risk disclosure rules and stress testing, thus strengthening overall financial system resilience.
The Global Flood Catastrophe Model is particularly relevant for low-lying urban environments, where sea level rise makes cities increasingly susceptible. Preliminary analysis suggests that global average annual flood losses are expected to double by the year 2100 without any adaptation steps.
The model simulates flood risk views for all major flood perils: fluvial, pluvial, and coastal. It provides comprehensive climate-driven flood risk information for the United States and offers a global view of all flood perils, unlike most maps that are limited to inland fluvial and pluvial flood data.
Fathom's Global Flood Catastrophe Model is a state-of-the-art catastrophe model, calibrated and tested by world-class partners. It allows for dynamic assessment of flood risk by year, location, and climate warming outcome, offering a forward-looking, comprehensive view of flood risk—enhancing economic efficiency, safety, and climate adaptation strategies across sectors.
Quantifying physical climate risk into the future is no longer a luxury but a necessity, according to Dr Haylock. The model now includes future climate scenarios at a global scale, providing stakeholders with the tools they need to navigate the challenges of a changing climate.
- Environmental scientists, planners, and business leaders can utilize Fathom's Global Flood Catastrophe Model to evaluate how flood risks evolve over time, incorporating climate change impacts, urban development, and sea level rise, thus facilitating smarter investments and infrastructure design.
- Banks and financial institutions can leverage the model's dynamic flood risk data to meet evolving climate-related risk disclosure rules and stress testing, strengthening overall financial system resilience.
- In the realm of science and technology, the integration of multiple data sources and advanced analytics in Fathom's Global Flood Catastrophe Model offers a forward-looking, comprehensive view of flood risk, providing vital information for insurers, investors, and environmental scientists to navigate the challenges of climate-change.
