New global flood risk tools launched by JBA Risk Management

A comprehensive set of global climate change tools focused on flood risk has been launched by JBA Risk Management, allowing risk managers to understand future flood risk in any country in the world.

According to JBA, the suite of tools consists of new customisable climate change flood models offering probabilistic flood loss modelling for every country in the world, “and new global climate change analytics data providing location-level baseline and future climate analysis of flood risk across the globe”.

It added: “JBA’s climate change methodology combines the highest-resolution flood mapping available with modelling the severity and frequency of rainfall and river flooding under future climate scenarios. Based on its own innovative research, JBA is able to create completely new event sets that capture more events with greater flood depths and wider geographical impacts. The result is a view of future flood risk with multiple scenarios covering intermediate and high emissions pathways.”

The tools are aimed at reinsurers, insurers, risk managers and lenders around the world, and allow the ability to incorporate a client’s own data, loss experience and view of risk.

Judith Ellison, climate change commercial lead, JBA Risk Management, said: “As the world’s focus turns to COP27, the launch of our new suite of tools demonstrating how diverse the impact of climate change will be in terms of flood loss and reduction around the world could not be timelier. The data not only reveals the complexity of flood risk around the world, and within different countries and regions, but will provide the industry with the insights and knowledge it desperately needs.”

JBA’s new tools demonstrate the growing climate change challenge when it comes to flood risk. The US as a whole would face an 18% increase in losses from inland flood by the mid-century under an intermediate climate warming scenario (should no mitigating action be taken), the tools reveal. JBA said there is considerable variation in the impact of climate change on flooding at a state level, with just over half of US states seeing a possible increase in losses from inland flood by 2050, with a reduction expected in other areas.

In the same climate scenario, Canada shows a reduction in flood risk of 18% and 30% in river and surface water losses. However, again the true picture is more complex, with some regions facing major increases while others will see major reductions, said JBA.

Mainland Europe, under the same mid-century, intermediate warming scenario, could see a 14% increase in river flood loss and a 23% increase in surface water loss, with nearly 80% of European countries observing an increase in surface water loss.