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Environmental information systems
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The indicator shows total economic losses from weather- and climate-related extreme events (such as windstorms, flooding, heatwaves, cold spells, droughts or wildfires) per country and per year (since 1980). A moving average for the previous 30 years is added because of the large interannual variability of the losses.
In Switzerland, approximately 1.8 million people live in flood-prone areas, where 1.7 million jobs and 25 % of national assets are located. Protective infrastructure . Since 1972, Switzerland has systematically collected data on direct storm losses due to floods, debris flows, landslides and rockfalls. These data come mainly from around 3 000 newspapers and are complemented by additional information from the cantons affected and from insurers in the case of major storm events. From 1972 to 2023, floods and debris flows caused about CHF 14.6 billion in damage, while landslides and rockfalls caused an additional CHF 1.3 billion, for a total of CHF 15.9 billion or an annual average of CHF 306 million . An analysis of the data for 1972–2016 indicated no statistically significant increase in damage over time. Potential effects of . As no further in-depth studies have been conducted since then, no conclusions can be drawn regarding the past decade.
For further information, see the Swiss Federal Office for the or the .
References and footnotes
- ↵Federal Office for the Environment, Umgang mit Naturgefahren in der Schweiz, Bern, 2012, p. 3, https://www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/45043.pdf.
- a bSwiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), ‘Swiss flood and landslide damage database’, WSL website, accessed 12 June 2025, https://www.wsl.ch/en/natural-hazards/understanding-and-forecasting-floods/flood-and-landslide-damage-database/.
- ↵Andres, N. and Badoux, A., ‘The Swiss flood and landslide damage database: Normalisation and trends’, Flood Risk Management, Vol. 12, No S1, 2018, e12510, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jfr3.12510.
- ↵Federal Office for the Environment, ‘Indicator natural hazards’, Federal Office for the Environment website, 18 November 2024, accessed 12 June 2025, https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home/themen/thema-naturgefahren/naturgefahren--daten--indikatoren-und-karten/naturgefahren--indikatoren/indikator-naturgefahren.pt.html/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaW5kaWthdG9yZW4uYWRtaW4uY2gvUHVibG/ljL0FlbURldGFpbD9pbmQ9R0UwMTcmbG5nPWVuJlN1Ymo9Tg%3d%3d.html.