Presentation made at the expert meeting organised jointly by the European Commission, the OECD and the project PLACARD, in Paris 26th -28th October 2016. For more information see www.oecd.org/gov/risk/joint-expert-meeting-on-disaster-loss-data.htm

1. JRC-OECD-PLACARD-Workshop
26-28 October 2016, Paris, France
Testing the Sendai indicators for “economic losses”
in Germany
Stephanie Natho
&
Annegret Thieken
University of Potsdam
Institute of Earth and Environmental Science

2. Hazard profile for Germany
Natural hazards in Germany
according to EM-DAT:
94 events between 1900 and 2016
Very costly:
Floods in 2002: € 11.6 bn
Floods in 2013: € 8 bn
Storm (Kyrill) in 2007: € 4.5 bn
Flash floods in 2016: € 1.2 bn (only
insured losses)

3. Extent and severity of flooding in June 2013
Record-breaking soil
saturation in May 2013
Source: CEDIM Forensic Disaster Analysis Group; revised in February 2014, pers. com. K. Schröter (GFZ)
S=75, L=45%
S: Severity index from Uhlemann, Thieken, Merz (2010) – HESS 14: 1277–1295.

4. Minimum requirements according to JRC and IRDR:
Human indicators for the flood of 2013
Source: Thieken et al. (2016): The flood of June 2013 in Germany: how much do we know about its
impacts? – NHESS 16: 1519-1540.

5. Minimum requirements according to JRC and IRDR:
Physical damage and economic indicators (2013-flood)

6. Damage per sector in 2013
Source: Thieken et al. (2016). NHESS 16: 1519-1540.

7. Events considered for
testing Sendai-Indicators
 River flooding in 1999,
2002, 2005 and 2013
 Flash floods in 2014
and 2016
 Windstorms in 2007,
2010 and 2014
 Hail storms in 1984,
2006 and 2013

8. Summary: Data availability
Loss = Number of damaged or destroyed structures *
average size *
unit replacement costs *
loss ratio
Number
Damaged
vs.
destroyed
Loss
ratio
Costs
per m²
Average
size [m²]
Reported
loss [€]
Infra-
structure
Res.
buildings
Agri-
culture
Estimation
Derived from other data
Specific Data

9. Direct losses in € Billion
Agriculture
Industry
Commerce
Houses damaged
Houses destroyed
Health
Education
Roads
Sum: infrastructure
Sum
Infra-
strcuture
Example calculation for the flood of 2002 in Saxony
 Estimations for the
commercial and the
residential sector with
adapted values for
Germany are in a
reasonable order of
magnitude.
 Estimates for
damage to
infrastructure are far
too low.

10. OpenStreetMap Name % of roads (BRD) € costs per km % of roads without Bund roads
motorway 2,7 10.000.000 0
primary 7 5.700.000 0
secondary 16,9 1.000.000 18,7
tertiary 18,4 470.000 20,3
residential 55,1 423.871 61,0
Possible approach for roads
 Documented damaged road length is
distributed among road types according
to federal average
 Unit costs per road type are multiplied
by the road lengths and the loss ratio.
Example Saxony 2002:
 740 km of roads affected
 assumed loss ratio: ca. 34%
 reported costs (without roads owned by
the Federal Government): € 135 million
example 740 km roads total costs costs in %
motorway not applicable 0 0,0
primary not applicable 0 0,0
secondary 138 46.741.386 34,5
tertiary 150 23.884.977 17,7
residential 451 64.665.625 47,8
SUM 739 135.291.987

11. Summary

12. Task Force „Flash Flood Braunsbach“
 Estimation of discharge
 Mapping of landslides
 Collection of damage to
residential buildings

13. Damage collection
On-site survey (KoBo-Collect)
 Structural damage
 Water level, flow direction
 Building use and construction
type
Data for
100 buildings
Official loss reports
 Repair costs buildings:
approx. € 1 million
 Infrastructure costs:
approx. € 100 million

14. Conclusions and suggestions
 With adaptations, parts of the methodology for the
economic loss indicators are applicable to Germany.
 Still, many input data are not available.
 Methods to estimate damage to infrastructure need more
attention.
With a newly funded DAAD-Scholarship more studies, also for
other European countries could be undertaken in 2017.
 Particularly, the collection of (physical) damage data needs
more attention.
 Task Force “Braunsbach” demonstrated the feasibility.
Idea: Create European Task Forces (e.g. in a COST action).