Exploring the potential of multivariate depth‐damage and rainfall‐damage models

In Europe, floods are among the natural catastrophes that cause the largest economic damage. This article explores the potential of two distinct types of multivariate flood damage models: ‘depth‐damage’ models and ‘rainfall‐damage’ models. We use survey data of 346 Flemish households that were victim of pluvial floods complemented with rainfall data from both rain gauges and weather radars. In the econometrical analysis, a Tobit estimation technique is used to deal with the issue of zero damage observations. The results show that in the ‘depth‐damage’ models flood depth has a significant impact on the damage. In the ‘rainfall‐damage’ models there is a significant impact of rainfall accumulation on the damage when using the gauge rainfall data as predictor, but not when using the radar rainfall data. Finally, non‐hazard indicators are found to be important for explaining pluvial flood damage in both ‘depth‐damage’ and ‘rainfall‐damage’ models.