Temporal dynamic vulnerability – impact of antecedent events on residential building losses to wind storm events in Germany

Abstract

Severe winter storm events are one of central Europe's most damaging natural hazards and are therefore particularly in focus for disaster risk management. One key factor for risk is vulnerability. Risk assessments often assume vulnerability to be constant. This is, however, not always a justifiable assumption. This work seeks and quantifies a potential dynamic of vulnerability for residential buildings in Germany. A likely factor affecting the dynamics of vulnerability is the hazard itself (Aerts et al., 2018). As extreme events may destroy the most vulnerable elements, it is likely that the subsequent rebuilding or repair will reduce their vulnerability to following events (UNISDR, 2017). Therefore, the intensity of the previous events and the resulting damage can be assumed to be a decisive factor in changing vulnerability. A second important factor is the time period between the previous and current event. If the next event occurs during the reconstruction phase, vulnerability might be higher than when the reconstruction phase is completed (de Ruiter et al., 2020).

Here, we analyse the importance of previous storm events for the vulnerability of residential buildings. For this purpose, generalized additive models are implemented to estimate vulnerability as a function of the intensity of the previous event and the time interval between the events. The damage is extracted from a 23-year-long data set of the daily storm and hail losses for insured residential buildings in Germany on the administrative district level provided by the German Insurance Association, and the hazard component is described by the daily maximum wind load calculated from the ERA5 reanalysis. The results show a negative relationship between the previous event's intensity and the current event's damage. As the time since the previous event increases, a significant decrease in an event's associated damage is found. On a daily scale, the first 5 to 10 d are especially crucial for vulnerability reduction.