Transcript Tuesday 26 October, 2010 – by Laurens Bouwer

Disasters and climate change: analyses and methods for
projecting future losses from extreme weather
SPACE talk – Tuesday 26 October, 2010 – by Laurens Bouwer
With direct economic losses from weather disasters, such as floods, windstorms, wildfires and droughts on the increase, there is no scientific
evidence that anthropogenic changes in extreme weather is the main driver for the observed trend. A review of the literature shows that the
observed loss increase is caused primarily by increasing exposure and value of capital at risk.
The PhD thesis of Laurens Bouwer proposes a comprehensive approach for calculating future risk, that combines scenarios of changing
exposure with a catastrophe model. The approach is aimed at quantifying the bandwidth of the possible development of future weather
risks. For a case study on flooding of the river Meuse in The Netherlands, future impacts from projected climate change and exposure on
river flood risk have been separated. The impact of climate change on weather losses is expected to remain small in coming decades, at
least for storms and river floods. For international climate policy this research implies that attribution of increases in disaster losses to
anthropogenic climate change will remain very difficult in the decades to come. Adaptation to changing risks seems the most effective way
of reducing the increasing impact from extreme weather in the period up to 2050.
When and where
Contact
Date:
Tuesday 26 October 2010
Corry Zoll
Time:
12.00 – 12.45 hrs.
Place:
Room C543
IVM, W&N building, VU Campus
(entrance via De Boelelaan 1085)
Institute for Environmental Studies
VU University Amsterdam
De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam
T 020-5989505
E [email protected]
IVM INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
VU University Amsterdam
De Boelelaan 1085 (visiting address)
De Boelelaan 1087 (postal address)
1081 HV Amsterdam
t +31-20-5989 555
f +31-20-5989 553
e [email protected]
i http://www.ivm.vu.nl