Flood risk management requires a realistic estimation of flood losses. However, the capacity of available flood damage models to depict real damages is questionable. With a joint effort of eight research groups, the objective of this study was to compare the performances of nine models for the estimation of flood damage to buildings. The comparison provided more objective insights on the transferability of the models and on the reliability of their estimations.

Flood risk management relies on assessments performed using flood loss models of different complexities. We compared the performances of expert-based and empirical damage models on three major flood events in northern Italy. Our findings suggest that multivariate models have better potential to provide reliable damage estimates if extensive ancillary characterisation data are available. Expert-based approaches are better suited for transferability compared to empirically based approaches.

By analyzing a comprehensive loss dataset of affected private households after a recent river flood event in northern Italy, we tackle the problem of flood damage estimation in Emilia-Romagna (Italy). We develop empirical uni- and multivariable loss models for the residential sector. Outcomes highlight that the latter seem to outperform the former and, in addition, results show a higher accuracy of univariable models based on local data compared to literature ones derived for different contexts.

Can differential land-subsidence significantly alter river flooding dynamics, and thus flood risk in flood prone areas? In the area around Ravenna, in Italy, that experimented a cumulative drop of more than 1.5 m after World War II due to groundwater pumping and gas production platforms, we compared the actual effects on flood-hazard dynamics of differential land-subsidence relative to those associated with other man-made topographic alterations, which proved to be much more significant.