Flood lessons learned: Locations with repeated flooding

Many businesses located in high-risk flood areas are asking what the future holds if they remain in the same location and flooding continues to increase in both frequency and severity. But what are the options?

Some may consider relocating to different premises within the region. Depending on the nature of their business, one option is to consider moving to a mid-floor unit in a larger building, industrial development or retail mall.

But such a move isn’t suitable for all types of business and others might think about relocating to a greenfield site such as a new industrial park. If so, it’s important to understand the level of flood mapping available for the development and to know what modelling has been completed. No business wants to prioritise a move to mitigate its flood risk only to discover subsequently that the new location is exposed to a similar exposure.

Some may consider relocating to different premises within the region. Depending on the nature of their business, one option is to consider moving to a mid-floor unit in a larger building, industrial development or retail mall.

But such a move isn’t suitable for all types of business and others might think about relocating to a greenfield site such as a new industrial park. If so, it’s important to understand the level of flood mapping available for the development and to know what modelling has been completed. No business wants to prioritise a move to mitigate its flood risk only to discover subsequently that the new location is exposed to a similar exposure.

In addition to moving, businesses can consider how to adapt their Flood Emergency Response Plan (FERP) to mitigate their flood risk by:

• Understanding the exposure, flood source, warning time, duration, and areas which are expected to be impacted
• Assigning authority to activate the plan so there is clear and prompt instructions for employees to undertake mitigation activities
• Determining prioritisation of the most effective pre-flood actions to mitigate the flood based on the available resources, the time to act, and the site-specific exposures.
• Determining post-flood actions to minimise interruptions to site operations. Performing ongoing testing and reviewing of their FERP, at the minimum on an annual basis.
• Changing weather patterns are forcing more businesses to think about how they evolve their operations to make them more resilient and whether staying in their existing location is sustainable in the medium to long term.

As businesses explore their options, working with their insurance partners will give them access to risk information, analysis and expertise. With Swiss Re’s Climate Risk Services for instance, businesses can quantify the impact of climate change on their physical portfolios now as well as in the near, mid- or long-term future. With this insight, businesses can look to adopt risk mitigation and transfer solutions.

There is also FLOAT, Swiss Re’s flood risk assessment tool which uses drones to capture location-specific elevation data. A cost-effective and highly accurate means to assess and manage a location’s flood risk, the collected data-set is transformed into a realistic visualisation of the location which shows potential vulnerabilities.

Beyond these solutions, the use of data and technology are constantly evolving. Through partnerships, businesses can keep pulse on solutions available or even co-create solutions that could give them access to data or help them make informed decisions and develop effective flood mitigation strategies for the future.

This case study is an excerpt from our 'Lessons Learned in Floods' publication which was developed in collaboration with Crawford & Company.