Community of Practice | Heavy Rainfall Risk Assessment: Learning from Regions
Over the past four decades, weather and climate extremes have generated an estimated €822 billion in economic losses across the EU, with flood-related events accounting for the largest share at nearly half of the total, followed by storms at around a quarter (European Environmental Agency, 2025). A key driver of these losses is heavy rainfall: when precipitation of exceptional intensity exceeds the absorption and drainage capacity of natural or human-made systems, it triggers rapid surface runoff and flash flooding with potentially devastating consequences for people, infrastructure, and ecosystems.
This CLIMAAX Community of Practice webinar is the sixth in the hazard- and workflow-focused series. Participants gained insights into how regional teams have assessed heavy rainfall hazard likelihood, exposure, and vulnerability, and how the resulting analysis has informed local adaptation planning and risk management strategies.
Through discussions with Toolbox developers, participants delved deeper into methodological choices, challenges, and lessons learned, supporting the translation of heavy rainfall risk assessment into actionable resilience strategies.
The session introduced the Heavy Rainfall Workflow, with presentations by Erika Mendelez (UPC), who detailed the technical framework for monitoring relative drought by combining hazard, exposure, and vulnerability to compare and prioritise regions within a country.
Marius Matreata and Florin Bilbie (Putna River Basin) delivered a presentation on their region’s experience applying the Heavy Rainfall Workflow, showing how the tools were adapted to assess flood hazard, exposure, and vulnerability along the Putna River Basin. This was followed by insights from Martin Kuban (Košice Region), who shared how the workflow was tailored to support risk management and adaptation planning in the Košice Region of Slovakia.
The session concluded with a moderated panel discussion, a summary of key takeaways, and an overview of upcoming events.