CLIMATEWIRE | Flood risk around the world is rising as the planet warms, and millions of people living in poverty are in danger because of it.
The researchers started with the concept of the “100-year flood” — that’s an event with a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year. By definition, these events are uncommon. But depending on where and how they occur, a 100-year flood might be more severe in some places than in others. Altogether, they found that around 1.81 billion people worldwide live in places exposed to extreme flood risks — about a quarter of the planet’s population. Around 88 percent live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The greatest total number of people exposed to both risks live in India, the country with the second-highest population in the world. Still, sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the greatest share of the population exposed to both threats — anywhere from around 9 to 28 percent of the population, depending on the definition of poverty used.
But lower-income communities, with fewer resources available for adaptation and recovery, are likely to face greater, longer-lasting damage from severe floods. That means the threshold for a so-called 100-year event will grow more severe as floods become more frequent and more extreme over time. And what constitutes a 100-year event today may become a far more common occurrence in the future. The half-foot of water faced by the areas included in the new study, for instance, may be a relatively rare event today — but may eventually happen much more often.
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