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Abstract

A better understanding of the drivers of increasing impact trends is essential for effective flood and drought risk management. However, empirical data is lacking about the processes that result in flood and drought impacts. We present a benchmark dataset containing socio-hydrological data of paired events, which is unique in covering both floods and droughts, in the number of cases assessed, and in the quantity of socio-hydrological data. The advantages of the dataset are that it enables comparative analyses across all the paired events and allows for detailed context- and location-specific assessments. A first analysis of the dataset revealed the general pattern that risk management normally reduces the impacts of floods and droughts, but faces difficulties in reducing the impacts of unprecedented events of a magnitude not experienced before (Kreibich et al. 2022a). The dataset can be used by the scientific community for exploratory data analyses and for the development of socio-hydrological models. As such, the dataset can support solving one of the twenty-three unsolved problems in hydrology (Blöschl et al. 2019). The dataset is available to the public through the GFZ Data Services (Kreibich et al. 2022b). References Blöschl, G. et al. (2019): Twenty-three unsolved problems in hydrology (UPH) – a community perspective. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 64, 10, 1141-1158, https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2019.1620507 Kreibich, H. et al. (2022a): The challenge of unprecedented floods and droughts in risk management. Nature, 608, 80-86, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04917-5 Kreibich, H. et al. (2022b): Panta Rhei benchmark dataset: socio-hydrological data of paired events of floods and droughts, https://doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.4.4.2022.002