Large floods in Europe, 1985–2009

Figures & data

Table 1 The six floods in Europe with the greatest (inflation-adjusted) material damage. See Choryński et al . (2012) for sources of information

No	Flood beginning	Country	Inflation-adjusted damage (million US$)	Number of fatalities
1	2002-08-01	Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Hungary, Moldova	27 115	232
2	1994-11-04	Italy	5 944–14 238	64–83
3	1966-11-04	Italy	14 005	70–118
4	2000-10-13	Italy, France, Switzerland	11 199	13–38
5	1983-08-25	Spain	2 847–8 623	40–45
6	1997-07-01	Poland, Czech Repussssblic, Germany	2 744–8 340	100–118

Fig. 1 Spatial distribution of the number of large floods in Europe, based on records of the Flood Observatory over the entire 25-year time interval, 1985–2009, for which records are available (cf. Pińskwar et al. 2012). The threshold for classification of large floods is severity equal to or larger than 1.5.

Fig. 2 Numbers of large floods of severity ≥1.5 and/or magnitude ≥5 in Europe each year during 1985–2009, based on Dartmouth Flood Observatory records.

Choryński , A. 2012 . “ Catalogue of large floods in Europe in the 20th century ” . In Changes in flood risk in Europe , Edited by: Kundzewicz , Z.W. Vol. 10 , 27 – 54 . Wallingford : IAHS Press and CRC Press/Balkema (Taylor & Francis Group)IAHS Special Publ .

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Pińskwar , I. 2012 . “ Changing floods in Europe ” . In Changes in flood risk in Europe , Edited by: Kundzewicz , Z.W. Vol. 10 , 83 – 96 . Wallingford : IAHS Press and CRC Press/Balkema (Taylor & Francis Group), IAHS Special Pub .

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