the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 08 Jul 2024
Flood exposure of environmental assets
Abstract. Environmental assets provide important benefits to society and support the equilibrium of natural processes. They can be affected by floods, nevertheless, flood risk analyses usually neglect environmental areas due to (i) a lack of agreement on what should be considered as an environmental asset, (ii) a poor understanding of environmental values, and (iii) the absence of damage models. The aim of this work is to advance the understanding of environmental exposure to floods by first identifying asset typologies that could be considered in flood risk analyses and second, by introducing a method, named EnvXflood, to estimate flood exposure of environmental assets. The method is structured around three levels of detail requiring increasing information, from a fast and parsimonious analysis suitable for regional assessment to a detailed ecosystem-service-based site analysis. Exposure focuses on the social and environmental value of the assets. Social values were investigated by means of a survey. The method was tested on three case studies in Italy (Tuscany region, Chiana, and Orcia basins). The Ecosystem Services weighting highlights the leading importance of the biodiversity-supporting service. The results of the analyses show that the environmental assets related to water, such as rivers, lakes, and wetlands, are the assets most exposed to floods. Notwithstanding, commonly they are not considered as exposed assets in the usual river management practices. Further research should aim at consolidating the asset typologies to be included in environmental exposure analysis and their social and ecological value, moving towards a coherent understanding of environmental flood impacts.
- Preprint
(1543 KB) - Metadata XML
-
Supplement
(2787 KB) - BibTeX
- EndNote
Status: final response (author comments only)
-
RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2024-105', Anonymous Referee #1, 19 Jul 2024
Firstly, I’d like to thank the authors for writing an interesting paper that focuses on an original and important topic, aiming to include environmental impacts better in risk assessments. An impressive amount of work has been done, with the extensive lit review, modelling, survey, and the setup of a flexibly applicable framework setup. While the work is very comprehensive and well-executed, some improvements can be made to the way that it’s communicated to the readers, especially in the first half of the paper.
Comments:
- Several components within the text can be introduced better. It would be helpful to get the introduction and definition of environmental assets earlier on in the text, rather than in section 2.1. Moreover, the focus on Italy is brought in quite abruptly in line 55, without explicit introduction of the case study. Similarly, the introduction of the EnvXflood method can be improved (in line 150), by including one or two additional lines on what it is, incl. at least one source. The model is also not mentioned in the introduction, only previously in the abstract.
- In section 2 it takes a long time before it can be understood what the authors have done, because of the way that the chapter is structured. E.g., in line 137-130 “they are usually protected by national or regional laws, which can be used as identification instruments. After identifying the assets commonly protected at the European level (and the Italian level) a classification based on few typologies has been proposed as a taxonomy for environmental assets” In these few lines, it’s assumed after the first sentence that the reader understands that it’s not only possible to identify assets using laws, but that this is indeed what the authors have done (while a full explanation of this is not provided until chapter 2.21 in line 219). Also, it is assumed that the reader understands that the chosen case study is Italy, while this is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the text until section 2.4 in line 317. Moreover, in line 160, different scales are mentioned and the authors refer to Figure 1, however at that point in the text it is not yet clear if the authors refer to spatial or temporal scales and how the different levels in the figure refer to different complexities. I suggest refraining from referring to the figure until the figure can be understood by the reader or adding additional information to the figure to clarify.
- There is quite a strong focus on the importance of water resources and ecosystems and while it’s understood that they show up as important in the results, the authors already emphasize their importance specifically before discussing the results (lines 376-385). They are the only typology of which the vulnerabilities are discussed, while for example landslides in land-based ecosystems can also cause cascading risks.
Minor adjustments:
- Some minor issues with the abbreviations used: ES is already used in line 155 before introducing the abbreviation in line 172. Also, in the caption of figure 1 in line 165 it says “ES stays for Ecosystem Services” which seems to be a translation/textual error, perhaps replace with “Ecosystem Services is abbreviated as ES” or something similar. It would also be good to check for consistency regarding the use of italics in abbreviations, e.g., in line 158 EEI is in italics, while in 164 EEI is not in italics.
- Tait 2019 in line 110 is not included in reference list, also how the source is referenced now it seems to support the statement made in the sentence, while, upon further inspection, it seems to be an example of one of these rare studies mentioned in the sentence. Please clarify that this is an example only.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-105-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Chiara Arrighi, 07 Aug 2024
On behalf of my co-authors, I thank you for your time and for the interesting and detailed comments on our work. We are pleased to read that you recognise the importance of better understanding the exposure of environmental assets to floods.
In the following, we reply to your notes.
1. We agree that the concept of Environmental Assets could be introduced earlier in the text, to clarify the definition since the beginning. We will rearrange the text to follow your suggestions. We believe, after your suggestion, that both the concepts of environmental assets and environmental damage should be better introduced since the beginning. Moreover, EnvXflood is the method that we developed in this work, thus there aren’t sources to mention. We will take care of better clarifying this aspect in the text.
2. Thanks for pointing out the issues related to clarity and organization of the text. We understand that adding/relocating some more detailed explanations will facilitate the comprehension of the writing. Regarding the second observation, related to the scales, we agree that the scale typology must be specified. Probably rearranging the figure position in the document will also help.
3. We gave a lot of importance to the water related assets because we observed a major issue in the common practice: despite their primary involvement in floods, and despite their importance, they are commonly not included in flood risk analyses, and we really want to emphasize that this practice must change. However, we totally agree that they are not the only typology that can suffer from flood events and that the more comprehensive these analyses are, the more we are able to catch all the exposed and – potentially– vulnerable elements. We will reflect on how to be more exhaustive in expressing this concept.
4. Regarding the minor adjustments, thanks again for the attention you paid in examining our manuscript, we will solve those minor adjustments in the revised manuscript.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-105-AC1
-
RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2024-105', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Aug 2024
Thank you for writing an informative paper with the objective of (1) defining a taxonomy of environmental assets that should be considered in flood exposure analysis, (2) developing a method to quantify the value of environmental assets that goes beyond economic values, and (3) introducing a spatial index of environmental exposure to be used in flood risk mapping. The paper aims at improving risk assessments which in turn can improve risk management strategies. The effects of flooding on environmental assets (highlighting the relevance of the research) are clearly explained and supported by references.
1. Introduction:
The choice of the term “environmental asset” could be supported by a reference.
The risk definition could be updated, considering that risk and the associated damage are a result of all three components hazard, exposure and vulnerability. Currently, the article mentions “the expected damage for the given hazard”
The authors should update the risk definition. I would recommend (1) replacing the reference (“mod. From UNDRR”) with a concrete reference that is shown in the bibliography and (2) updating the following aspects: (a) “object of the risk analysis” could be replaced by “elements at risk” and (b) the term vulnerability should be described. For alignment with the UNDRR definition (vulnerability = “conditions […] which increase the susceptibility of an individual, a community, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards”), the section describing “vulnerability V, or the expected damage for the given hazard”) should be revised.
When summarizing the “current” state of the literature, a reference published in 2004 should be complemented by more recent publications (in lines 77-78).
The authors are encouraged to revise the enumeration which presents “contingent valuation” and “willingness to pay” approaches as a list suggesting that they are different approaches – it could be clarified that WTP approaches fall under CV methods (as mentioned in the reference provided by the authors) (lines 82-83).
The authors could use the introduction to provide more background on previous research on the topic of environmental damage to environmental assets. The single reference that was cited (Tait 2019) should be added to the bibliography. It is a non-academic publication. If possible, adding some academic references to position the proposed paper in the broader academic landscape could help to highlight the contribution of the proposed paper to the existing literature. E.g. there is research on damage to ecosystems from flooding. The proposed study is intending to expand
The rational for selecting a limited geographic scope (Europe and Italy) should be provided. The reading flow would benefit from an explanation why these regions are especially relevant (lines 51, 55, and 139 mention Europe & Italy, without explanation of why these regions were selected).
The authors could clarify what they refer to (asset types and geographic scope) when saying “all the assets” in line 142.
2. Materials and methods:
In section “2.2.1 Level 1,” the explanation (lines 221-229) would benefit from an example, e.g. providing a map with differently weighted areas and the calculation of the score. In the current version of the text, it is not very clear how the values are assigned. What value is assigned to e.g. an UNESCO heritage site or to a Ramsar site?
Section 2.2.2 Level 2 mentions “woods” as an environmental asset. In ecosystem services assessments, usually “wood” is be considered a forest product, hence it is counted under provisioning services of the forest. However, the ecosystem is the forest. The authors could explain what categories are used to describe “environmental assets” before presenting the weighting approach. The authors could further place the method proposed for the weighting of ecosystem services in the context of existing research that uses weighting approaches for ecosystem services, e.g. multi-criteria decision analysis for nature conservation.
The formula presented in line 275 would benefit from further visualization of the structure used to order the ecosystem service subcategories. The authors could clarify based on which criteria the 16 ES were selected.
In the section “2.3 Survey” the methodology description shifts from a general methodology overview to a specific survey conducted in Italy. The authors could consider aligning the framing of the different methodology sections. One way to do that could be to present a general methodology first and then apply it to the case study area or, alternatively, introduce the case study area (and choice selection) first and then apply the proposed methodology directly to that area. It is recommended to present the full formula to get to the result in line 315.
While the objectives of the paper are clearly stated, the methodology would benefit from a clear statement of the research question.
The methods section could state more clearly which maps are used to identify the environmental assets: 1. in general, for future studies using the proposed methodology and 2. for the Italy case study.
3. Results and discussion:I haven’t fully understood yet what the benefit of the proposed typology is compared to existing typologies of ecosystems, e.g. the red list of ecosystems. The paper would become much stronger if the process of creating the list of assets would be explained in more depth. “MTB tracks” seem to be listed as a single category, while hiking tracks are not. If that was a deliberate decision, it might be good to explain the decision. The site “Gas emitting” seems to be missing a noun.
While before, the reference case is Europe or Italy, the taxonomy aims to represent protected environmental assets in Europe and internationally (line 371). It should be discussed to which degree the selected case can represent the whole world. It could be clarified under “3.2 survey results” (or before) what the geographic coverage of the survey was.
Types of areas under consideration: In the introduction, it was not highlighted that the focus is on “protected” environmental assets. Section 2 on methods mentions that “they are usually protected by national or regional laws, which can be used as identification instruments” (line 138f.). The authors identify all protected assets in Europe (and Italy?) and based on this derive a typology of environmental assets. In the results, the focus is only on protected areas. There are non-protected ecosystems that provide considerable ecosystem services. The authors could explain why they limit their analysis to protected areas.
After reading the results section, the methodology described in section 2 and the goals of the paper become more clear to the reader.
After reading the paper, it seems like the case study focuses on riverine flooding. This specification could be made in the introduction.
The wording “natural events” (in line 569) could be misleading in times of climate change, where flood events are becoming more severe and more frequent and hence are not only “natural” but also also driven by anthropogenic climate change. It might be more suitable to say flooding instead of “natural events.”
In conclusion, the authors are encouraged to consider the literature on flooding-induced damage to ecosystems and on methods for weighting ecosystem services when presenting the existing literature in order to place the proposed study within an existing body of literature. The paper could benefit from explicit statements regarding the decisions made in the research process (choice of case study area, choice of maps to generate the environmental asset taxonomy). Finally, the authors are encouraged to discuss the generalizability of the taxonomy, considering that the case study is limited to the European context.
I see the strengths of the paper mainly in achieving objectives 2 and 3, which are filling a gap in the existing disaster risk assessment research. The authors could consider framing these as the key contributions of the paper.
Minor comments:
- The authors could try to simplify the language when describing the objectives, e.g. the objective “identify what should be considered as environmental asset in a flood exposure analysis, i.e., define a taxonomy for exposure” could be summarized by saying “develop a taxonomy for environmental assets exposed to flooding.” The objective to “develop a new method for valuing the environmental assets able to differentiate among asset typologies, and which is not directly based on the economic value of the asset” could be shortened by saying “assessing monetary and non-monetary values of environmental assets.”
- In some instances, the grammar could be improved and prepositions could be updated, e.g. “contaminants originated by human activities” should be replaced by “contaminants originating from human activities.” This could be achieved by using an AI tool for a quick grammar check.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-105-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Chiara Arrighi, 21 Aug 2024
Dear Reviewer, thank you for your thorough and insightful feedback on our manuscript. We appreciate the time and effort you have invested in providing such detailed comments and suggestions, which greatly contribute to improving our work.
Below, we address your points:
- Introduction
- We agree that the term "environmental asset", even if of common use, could benefit from additional support. We will incorporate a reference to substantiate this terminology, aligning it with existing literature.
- We acknowledge the importance of aligning our definition of risk with the established framework, considering the components of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. We agree also with point s (a,b), and we will also update the reference for the definition.
- We appreciate the suggestion to include more recent studies, and we totally agree. Sometimes we had to go back to less recent references to find support for some specific topics. We will update our research with the most recent references available at the moment of the review.
- We will revise the enumeration of “contingent valuation” and “willingness to pay” approaches to clarify that WTP is a subset of CV methods, as correctly noted.
- Thanks for commenting on this. We decided to present the topic of environmental damage without going in deep of it, since our study is focused only on the exposure. But we understand your comment and we agree that we can expand the background provided on previous research related to environmental damage to environmental assets, adding academic references where possible. Tait will be added in the bibliography.
- The rationale for selecting Europe and Italy as the geographic scope is the legislative framework. We will revise the mentioned paragraphs to provide a clearer setting.
- We will clarify what is meant by "all the assets" in line 142, ensuring that the scope of asset types and geographic coverage is clearly communicated.
- Materials and methods
- We agree that the explanation in section 2.2.1 would benefit from a practical example. We will think about including a calculation example (like the ones you mentioned) to illustrate how values are assigned to different assets.
- The issue here is due to the use of “woods” as synonym of “forests”, and this can generate misunterstandigs. Thanks for noticing it, we will substitute it. Regarding the classification and the categories, they are not presented here due to the choice to strongly divide methodology from results. Anyway, we agree that this can reduce the clarity and the communication effectiveness of the text. We will think on how to address this, and we may discuss it further if you have any other suggestion. Thanks for suggesting the nature conservation as a field in which finding literature support for our weighting method.
- We will clarify the criteria used to select the 16 ecosystem services (ES) categories, providing a more detailed explanation of the structure used.
- The survey has been developed without focusing on the Italian audience, but has been administrated mainly, but not exclusively, to an Italian public. But the survey is not limited to the case study, which is a separate section of the manuscript. We agree for the formula.
- We can include a clearer statement of the research question within the methodology section, enhancing the focus of our study.
- Result and discussion
- The proposed typolgy differs because it relies on the assets that are individuated by the legislative framework of the place in which the assessment is conducted. This helps because a clear selection of the assets could be tricky or less applicable if they are not recognised by the local authorities. For this reason we also highlighted that for comparing two regions, the assessments must be done on the same assets, because they may change (depending on the legislative framework, they can be unified across a nation, or some can vary among different regional administrations, as it happens in Italy). We will expand the discussion on the details and the benefits of the proposed typology, comparing it with existing typologies such as the Red List of Ecosystems. MTB tracks are a separated category in the protection laws of our case study, while no distinction is done for hiking trails. We will be clearer and expand also this facet.
- That’s because in Italy there are assets protected by international and European laws. With the proposed corrections and clarifications, there will be no more misunderstandings about this. We thank you for pointing out that this framework was not clear, since our scope is to communicate effectivley and without misunderstandings our work, and clarifying this will help a lot in achieving this objective.
- Yes, we focused on riverine floods in the case study, we will state it.
- That definition is referred to a non correct, unfortunately common, practice. We don’t focus on the climate change effects on floodings in this study, but we agree that most of the damages potentially induced by flooding to a environmental asset are human derived, e.g. pollution. We will revise this paragraph following your seuggestion.
- We will discuss the generalizability of the proposed taxonomy, considering the limitations posed by our focus on the European context and explore the implications for broader application.
- We will simplify the language used to describe the objectives and improve the grammar throughout the manuscript, evaluating the use of AI tools for grammar checks as suggested.
Finally, we appreciate a lot your recognition of the strengths of our paper, particularly in achieving objectives 2 and 3. We will consider emphasizing these aspects as key contributions of our work.
We hope that these comments will address your suggestions effectively.
Once again, thank you for your valuable feedback.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-105-AC2
Viewed
| HTML | XML | Total | Supplement | BibTeX | EndNote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 288 | 76 | 29 | 393 | 19 | 10 | 8 |
- HTML: 288
- PDF: 76
- XML: 29
- Total: 393
- Supplement: 19
- BibTeX: 10
- EndNote: 8
Viewed (geographical distribution)
| Country | # | Views | % |
|---|
| Total: | 0 |
| HTML: | 0 |
| PDF: | 0 |
| XML: | 0 |
- 1
