Global flood risk and poverty: an interview with Euronews Now
Fathom’s COO, Dr Andrew Smith, is interviewed on Euronews Now to discuss research that draws on Fathom-Global flood hazard data
What is the link between global flood risk and poverty?
A research article produced by Thomas McDermott, titled “Global exposure to flood risk and poverty” and published in Nature, has used Fathom-Global 2.0 flood hazard data to explore the link between global flood risk and poverty.
The analysis highlights the research findings of the World Bank’s study using Fathom flood data to understand the impact of global flood exposure. The data from this study demonstrated that poorer communities would be disproportionately affected, with over 780 million people living on less than $5.50 a day facing high flood risk.
“It’s changing urbanisation patterns that we see really driving up exposure levels. More and more people are moving into urban centres for example and actually, the reality is that the best places to live in those urban centres are already occupied, so we see that areas that have experienced flood risk are coming urbanised . One of the real things we can do to avoid more risk in the future is to simply not build in those areas.”
Dr Andrew Smith, Fathom’s COO
About the data
Fathom-Global 2.0 uses the best available terrain and hydrography data, MERIT-DEM and MERIT-Hydro, to provide the most accurate view of the ground surface elevation and location of all rivers.
Using a 2D hydraulic modelling framework, Fathom-Global simulates inundation across every river in the world.
