Projecting Future Flood Losses to Company Assets in Europe: The Role of Precautionary Measures

Flooding has become an escalating threat over the past years, driven by climate, land use and socio-economic changes. In Europe, floods now surpass other natural disasters in severity, causing substantial economic losses, particularly in the companies (commercial and industrial sectors). While river flood impacts on agriculture and residential properties have been extensively studied, research on companies losses remain limited despite their significantly high direct damages. This study enhances fluvial flood risk assessment for company assets by integrating flood hazard scenarios with flexible state-of-the-art Bayesian Network-based flood loss model and object-specific exposure data. It estimates the expected annual damage (EAD) to company properties across Europe under a baseline and potential future scenarios shaped by climate change, exposure dynamics, and their combined effects. Additionally, the study assesses the potential of property-level precautionary measures to mitigate flood risks. Results indicate that, compared to the baseline (year—1995), the EAD values could rise more than 5-fold under RCP4.5 scenario and 7-fold under RCP8.5 scenario by the end of the century. However, a policy scenario in which all companies implement at least one precautionary measure (“measures for all”) effectively offsets these projected losses by up to 67%. This underscores the crucial role of individual actions in reducing future flood impacts.