Asset-Level Modelling of Climate Change-Related Flooding Risk

The Green and Sustainable Finance (GSF) transversal research programme of the Institut Louis Bachelier and the interdisciplinary Energy4Climate Center (E4C) are inviting you to the upcoming joint seminar on September 12, at the premises of Institut Louis Bachelier.

Guest speaker

Dr Quyen Nguyen, from the University of Otago, New Zealand, will present their latest research on the topic of “Asset-Level Modelling of Climate Change-Related Flooding Risk”.

Abstract

Analyses of climate change-related flooding hazards and the related impacts on individual residential property values require accurate projections of flooding risks into the future. Such projections should be nuanced enough so that the extent and timing of potential flood hazards can be mapped to exposure and vulnerability at the property level. However, as the modelling process involves the combination of several data layers (for instance, projection of sea-level rise, rising groundwater level, extreme sea level), the data uncertainty inherent to these layers may affect flood hazard projection accuracy. Further, several architecture choices are to be made during the modelling process which may well have a substantial impact on the estimation results. The choices include, but are not limited to: the range of climate scenarios that reflect the possible evolutions of climate into the future, the choice of inundation models that either assumes a horizontal groundwater level everywhere (the ‘bathtub’ fill model) or factors in subsurface heterogeneity and spatial variations in water table height (the groundwater model), the identification of the “zero baselines” that defines the land-sea boundary (the mean sea level or the mean high water spring), the spatial resolutions on which inundation maps are generated, the choice of LiDAR datasets, the number of Monte Carlo realizations and the damage functions to be employed. It is important to understand how these architecture choices and data uncertainty may affect the projections of future flood hazards and the flow-on effect on residential property values. In this paper, the authors highlight the importance of uncertainty estimates when they relate to high impact public-interest decision-making. They do so in the context of modelling the change in coastal and low-lying flood risks due to sea-level rise of the Greater South Dunedin area, one of the most vulnerable areas subject to climate change in New Zealand (PCE, 2015).

 

REGISTRATION

 

The registration is free, on a first-come, first-served basis due to the limited number of places.

Organisers:

• Green and Sustainable Finance (GSF)
• Energy4Climate Interdisciplinary Center