Flood depth map from the study.
Flood depth in meter for once in 100-year flood over the Save River in Zimbabwe, Africa at 30 meter spatial resolution. Credit: Wing et al. [2024], Figure 8c
Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: Water Resources Research

Flooding is the most pervasive natural disaster and flood risks are increasing in many parts of the world due to climate change, rapid population growth, and economic activity. This has serious implications for future economic prosperity and societal wellbeing worldwide.

Wing et al. [2024] construct a new global flood hazard map at 30-meter spatial resolution, tackling some of the major theoretical and technical challenges in the existing hydrodynamic modeling. Its high-resolution, multi-peril representation of the current and future flood hazards establishes an updated state of the art in global-scale flood modeling and mapping.

Simulated future global flood hazard maps show that future emissions reduction can hold flood hazards largely constant this century but coastal flooding will increase drastically regardless. These improved global flood hazard maps at unprecedented scale will facilitate the modeling, evaluation, and mitigation of future global flood risks.

Citation: Wing, O. E. J., Bates, P. D., Quinn, N. D., Savage, J. T. S., Uhe, P. F., Cooper, A., et al. (2024). A 30 m global flood inundation model for any climate scenario. Water Resources Research, 60, e2023WR036460. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR036460

—Yoshihide Wada, Associate Editor, Water Resources Research

The logo for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 is at left. To its right is the following text: The research reported here supports Sustainable Development Goal 13. AGU is committed to supporting the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.
Text © 2024. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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