German insurers plan to provide better warnings about the risk of flash floods during storms in future.
"The July 2021 flood in particular showed that the flood simulations used to date do not depict flash floods accurately enough," said Anja Käfer-Rohrbach, deputy managing director of the German Insurance Association.
From next year onwards, the risk of sudden flooding will therefore be modelled, she said. This data will be fed into a portal that will help insurers to answer the question of which buildings are at risk of flooding and to what extent. So far, only the risks of flooding and heavy rainfall have been modelled there.
Most recently, the association had identified more than 320,000 addresses at risk of flooding.
With the planned expansion to include flash floods, insurers are reportedly preparing for the more frequent extreme weather events that experts expect due to climate change.
"In narrow mountain valleys, where a lot of water falls from the mountain slopes, the river levels can swell significantly higher than with the same amount of rain in open terrain," Käfer-Rohrbach said. The new system was tested last year in areas including Germany's Ahr Valley, which was hit by a flood disaster in 2021.
"We are focusing on the relevant areas. These are the low and high mountain ranges," said Käfer-Rohrbach. The modelling covers around a third of all addresses in Germany. However, not all of these are particularly at risk from flash floods.
In view of the danger, Käfer-Rohrbach called for consequences: "The federal government, federal states and local authorities must push ahead with prevention measures and provide sufficient funding. And we need a building freeze in risk areas."