Uploaded May 2018 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Anders Levermann and Sven Willner from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research on their new paper.
Intensifying river floods could lead to regional production losses worldwide caused by global warming. This might not only hamper local economies around the globe – the effects might also propagate through the global network of trade and supply chains, a study now published in Nature Climate Change shows. It is the first to assess this effect for flooding on a global scale, using a newly developed dynamic economic model. It finds that economic flood damages in China, which could, without further adaption, increase by 80 percent within the next 20 years, might also affect EU and US industries. The US economy might be specifically vulnerable due to its unbalanced trade relation with China. Contrary to US president Trump’s current tariff sanctions, the study suggests that building stronger and thus more balanced trade relations might be a useful strategy to mitigate economic losses caused by intensifying weather extremes.
Article: Sven N. Willner, Christian Otto, Anders Levermann (2018): Global economic response to river floods. Nature Climate Change [DOI:10.1038/s41558-018-0173-2]
Anders Levermann and Sven Willner from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research on their new paper.
Intensifying river floods could lead to regional production losses worldwide caused by global warming. This might not only hamper local economies around the globe – the effects might also propagate through the global network of trade and supply chains, a study now published in Nature Climate Change shows. It is the first to assess this effect for flooding on a global scale, using a newly developed dynamic economic model. It finds that economic flood damages in China, which could, without further adaption, increase by 80 percent within the next 20 years, might also affect EU and US industries. The US economy might be specifically vulnerable due to its unbalanced trade relation with China. Contrary to US president Trump’s current tariff sanctions, the study suggests that building stronger and thus more balanced trade relations might be a useful strategy to mitigate economic losses caused by intensifying weather extremes.
Article: Sven N. Willner, Christian Otto, Anders Levermann (2018): Global economic response to river floods. Nature Climate Change [DOI:10.1038/s41558-018-0173-2]
