SRP-IF: Open access global flood hazard layers.

在英国（例如，萨默塞特水平，2014年）和国际（例如，澳大利亚和泰国，2011年）反复发生的高姿态洪水事件导致公众、商业、政治和科学对洪水风险的持续关注。洪水问题在科学界的突出地位反映在国家自然资源研究中心最近和目前完全或大部分致力于这一主题的专题方案的数量上。布里斯托大学的水文小组参与或领导了许多项目，其结果是我们对英国等数据丰富地区洪水风险的理解有了实质性的提高。然而，洪水显然是一个世界性的现象，一致的全球性危害和风险产品目前还不存在，但国际政府和非政府组织，英国企业非常迫切地需要。展望未来，由于人口增长和移民，位于河流洪泛平原和沿海三角洲的城市的持续扩张预计将在未来几十年内产生显着增加洪水风险。这一前景尤其令（再）保险市场（英国金融服务业的一个关键组成部分）以及世界银行和联合国世界粮食计划署等全球人道主义和发展组织感到担忧。最近的损失已被证明是巨大的：2007年夏季英国洪水造成的家庭损失达到25亿英镑，商业损失又占10亿英镑。再保险公司慕尼黑再保险公司估计，2011年澳大利亚和泰国洪灾造成的总经济损失分别为28亿美元和400亿美元。在此背景下，尽管主要关注英国洪水风险，但上述最近由NERC资助的项目已经取得了一些重要的研究进展，这些进展已经开始缩小全球洪水风险方面存在的知识差距。也许最关键的是，NERC资助的研究在布里斯托大学进行了产生的算法，允许非常大规模的洪水模型进行。NERC资助的进一步研究指导了模型结构的开发，这些模型结构允许开发具有全球覆盖范围的模型。布里斯托大学的水文学小组通过与韦莱研究网络的长期合作关系与保险市场建立了牢固的联系，韦莱是全球三大再保险经纪人之一。通过与韦莱和其他行业合作伙伴的这种关系，确定了开发免费提供的全球洪水危险层和商业洪水风险产品的潜力。目前，适合保险和再保险市场的洪水风险产品仅存在于全世界少数几个地区。对许多发达和新兴市场来说，准备金几乎为零，但风险敞口却很大，而且还在不断增长。与此同时，免费提供的全球洪水灾害层将为世界粮食计划署等人道主义机构和世界银行等在减少风险方面具有重大利益的国际组织带来重大利益。因此，该项目将使用作为NERC资助科学的一部分开发的最先进方法来制作全球洪水灾害层，并通过Google Earth提供大规模开放访问。这些层面将是第一个可供各国政府、非政府组织和全球公众使用的全球公开的洪水灾害评估，从而从根本上改变全球对洪水灾害的认识，并导致洪水复原力的一步变化。然后，我们将与全球（再）保险业合作，以确定与此相关的商业机会和相关的NERC资助的科学。该提案得到了谷歌、美国宇航局喷气推进实验室、世界银行、世界粮食计划署、威利斯、三井住友、蒙彼利埃再保险公司以及阅读大学和纽卡斯尔大学的支持。

The repeated occurrence of high profile flood events, both within the UK (e.g. Somerset Levels, 2014) and internationally (e.g. Australia and Thailand, 2011), has resulted in sustained public, commercial, political and scientific interest in flood risk. The heightened profile of flooding within the scientific community is reflected in the number of recent and current NERC thematic programmes dedicated wholly or in large part to this topic. The Hydrology Group at the University of Bristol has been involved in or led numerous programmes, with the result being a substantial improvement in our understanding of flood risk in data-rich regions such as the UK. However flooding is very clearly a worldwide phenomenon and consistent global hazard and risk products do not currently exist but are very urgently required by international governments and NGOs, and by British businesses.Looking to the future, the continued expansion of cities located on river floodplains and coastal deltas due to population growth and migration is expected to produce a significant increase in flood risk over the coming decades. The prospect is of particular concern to the (re)insurance market, a critical component of the UK financial services sector, as well as to global humanitarian and development organisations such as the World Bank and the United Nations World Food Programme. Recent losses have proven significant: household losses resulting from the summer 2007 floods in the UK reached £2.5 billion, with business losses accounting for a further £1 billion. The reinsurance firm Munich Re estimates that total economic losses from the Australian and Thailand events of 2011 were USD 2.8 billion and USD 40 billion respectively.Against this background and despite being largely focussed on UK flood risk the above mentioned recent NERC-funded programmes have yielded a number of important research developments that have started to close the knowledge gap that exists for global flood risk. Perhaps most critically, NERC funded research undertaken at the University of Bristol has yielded algorithms that allow very large scale flood models to be undertaken. Further NERC funded research has guided the development of model structures that allow models with global coverage to be developed. The Hydrology Group at the University of Bristol has built strong links with the insurance market through a long standing partnership with the Willis Research Network, Willis being one of the three dominant global reinsurance brokers. Through this relationship with Willis and other industry partners the potential to develop both freely available global flood hazard layers and commercial flood risk products was identified. Currently flood risk products appropriate for insurance and re-insurance markets exist in only a few territories worldwide. For many developed and emerging markets is near zero provision but significant and growing exposure. At the same time, freely available global flood hazard layers would be a significant benefit to humanitarian agencies such as the World Food Programme and international organisations with significant interests in risk reduction such as the World Bank.Therefore, this project will produce global flood hazard layers using state of the art methods developed as part of NERC funded science and provide massively open access to these via Google Earth. These layers will be the first global openly accessible assessment of flood hazard that can be used by Governments, NGOs and the entire global public thereby changing fundamentally global awareness of flood hazard and leading to a step change in flood resilience. We will then work with the global (re)insurance industry to identify commercial opportunities relating to this and related NERC funded science. The proposal is supported by Google, NASA-JPL, World Bank, World Food Programme, Willis, Mitsui Sumitomo, Montpelier-Re and the Universities of Reading and Newcastle.