Case Study: Flood Re assesses climate-driven flood risk in UK defenses with Moody’s Analytics

Evaluating the performance of UK flood defences under climate change

Moody's Analytics, using its RMS Europe Inland Flood HD and Climate Change Models, partnered with Flood Re, a U.K. reinsurance scheme for high flood risk properties. The challenge was to understand how climate change could impact the performance of flood defences by 2040, the year the scheme ends, and to evaluate the effectiveness of potential defence upgrades in mitigating increasing losses for two U.K. towns, York and Pontypridd.

The Moody's RMS solution modeled a severe 1-in-50-year flood event under different climate and defence-strengthening scenarios. The study projected that climate change alone would erode defences, causing an additional £11-20 million in losses for York and £8-17 million for Pontypridd by 2040. Moody's Analytics found that while upgrading defences did offset these losses, a 50% increase in protection standards provided the most cost-effective benefit, with diminishing returns on larger investments, highlighting the practical limits of relying solely on structural defences.

Flood Re