More Storms and Floods in the 21st Century

The impacts of climate change, long felt in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, much of South-East Asia and the Caribbean islands, are now being experienced with greater frequency and intensity in Europe too. The following chart draws from the International Disaster Database Tracking (EM-DAT) to show the increase in extreme weather events and natural disasters across the European continent since 1923.

More than 1,500 weather events - including droughts, floods, extreme temperature events and storms - have occurred in Europe over the past 100 years, with two thirds of them having taken place since the turn of the century. Floods (674 recorded events), storms (569) and extreme temperature events (278) were the most commonly recorded natural disasters, while the number of droughts is comparatively lower, at 48.

The EM-DAT data categorizes an event as a disaster when at least one of the following criteria has been met: 10 or more people were killed, 100 or more people were affected, whether a declaration of a state of emergency was announced and whether a call for international assistance was issued.