How are cities adapting to the increasing risk of floods?

Aug 4, 2022

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of disasters such as flooding. Image: Unsplash/Egor Gordeev

Sahil Gandhi

Assistant Professor, University of Manchester

Matthew Kahn

Provost Professor of Economics, University of Southern California

Rajat Kochhar

PhD student in Economics, University of Southern California

Somik V. Lall

Lead Economist, Office of the Chief Economist for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions, World Bank

Vaidehi Tandel

Lecturer, Henley Business School, University of Reading

Our Impact

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how Climate Change is affecting economies, industries and global issues

A hand holding a looking glass by a lake

Crowdsource Innovation

Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:

Climate Change

Night lights before and after floods in Chennai, India: 2015–16.

Floods disrupt life in cities through temporary power failures, disruption of essential services, damage to property, and temporary closure of offices and factories. Image: VoxEu

Cities in low-income countries that had experienced repeated flooding in the past saw higher deaths per disaster. Image: VoxEu

Impact of floods on night lights in cities in high-income and low-income countries.

On average, floods lead to a decline in mean night lights in cities by around 3%. Image: VoxEu

Discover

How is the World Economic Forum fighting the climate crisis?

Have you read?

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.