Financing agricultural drought risk through ex-ante cash transfers.

Despite advances in drought early warning systems, forecast information is rarely used for triggering and financing early actions, such as cash transfer. Scaling up cash transfer pay-outs, and overcoming the barriers to actions based on forecasts, requires an understanding of costs resulting from False Alarms, and the potential benefits associated with appropriate early interventions. On this study, we evaluate the potential cost-effectiveness of cash transfer responses, comparing the relative costs of ex-ante cash transfers during the maize growing season to ex-post cash transfers after harvesting in Kenya.

Flood risk and adaptation strategies under climate change and urban expansion: A probabilistic analysis using global data.

An accurate understanding of flood risk and its drivers is crucial for effective risk management. Detailed risk projections, including uncertainties, are however rarely available, particularly in developing countries. This paper presents a method that integrates recent advances in global-scale modeling of flood hazard and land change, which enables the probabilistic analysis of future trends in national-scale flood risk.

Structured Coupling of Probability Loss Distributions: Assessing Joint Flood Risk in Multiple River Basins.

Losses due to natural hazard events can be extraordinarily high and difficult to cope with. Therefore, there is considerable interest to estimate the potential impact of current and future extreme events at all scales in as much detail as possible. As hazards typically spread over wider areas, risk assessment must take into account interrelations between regions.

Declining vulnerability to river floods and the global benefits of adaptation.

The global impacts of river floods are substantial and rising. Effective adaptation to the increasing risks requires an in-depth understanding of the physical and socioeconomic drivers of risk. Whereas the modeling of flood hazard and exposure has improved greatly, compelling evidence on spatiotemporal patterns in vulnerability of societies around the world is still lacking.

Strong influence of El Niño Southern Oscillation on flood risk around the world.

El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most dominant interannual signal of climate variability and has a strong influence on climate over large parts of the world. In turn, it strongly influences many natural hazards (such as hurricanes and droughts) and their resulting socioeconomic impacts, including economic damage and loss of life. However, although ENSO is known to influence hydrology in many regions of the world, little is known about its influence on the socioeconomic impacts of floods (i.