From hazard to risk: the MOVIDA tool for flood damage assessment and mapping in the Po river distric

Flood damage assessment and mapping are crucial steps in defining effective flood risk mitigation strategies, as they enable the evaluation of alternative interventions by comparing their required investments with the expected reduction in impacts. For this reason, the European Commission requires Member States to develop and periodically update flood hazard and risk maps, to be used at the basis of Flood Risk Management Plans. However, most of the current approaches applied for damage mapping are based on qualitative and expert-based analysis of damage processes, with limited usability for flood risk management. To overcome such limitations, the MOVIDA project developed new tools, embracing state of art damage models and knowledge on damage mechanisms, for an analytical assessment and mapping of flood damage in the Italian territory, with specific reference to the Po River District (North of Italy). Accounting for all categories of exposed assets and, where feasible, providing monetary estimates of flood damage, MOVIDA offers a substantial improvement over existing damage maps, thus supporting comprehensive cost-benefit and multi-criteria analyses, both in terms of the assets considered and the depth of information provided.