Floods and firms: vulnerabilities and resilience to natural disasters in Europe

Exploiting data on historical natural hazards, granular flood risk maps and firm geolocalisation, the reports studies the dynamic impacts of floods on European manufacturing firms during the period 2007-2018. It found that water damage significantly and persistently worsens firm performance, and may endanger firm survival. An average flood deteriorates total assets by about 2% in the year after the event, and up to 5% seven years afterwards. The average drop in sales and employment is comparable.