JBA Risk Management, a UK-based flood science specialist, has extensively updated its Global Flood Model, enhancing it with updated hazard maps, an extended range of future climate event sets, while improving processing speed and exposure disaggregation.
These developments aim to enable reinsurers, insurers, brokers, risk managers, and asset managers to better map present and evolving flood risk exposure and undertake transparent, fully auditable stress testing.
The model is underpinned by the Oasis Loss Modelling Framework, making it accessible on multiple platforms, including Oasis, Verisk Model Exchange, and Elements from Aon’s Impact Forecasting team, and can also be installed in-house or delivered as a bespoke portfolio analysis service by JBA’s flood experts.
The updated model includes maps for 17 key countries, including Hungary, Japan, China, Thailand, India, Vietnam, Poland, Slovakia, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, South Korea, and South Africa.
Additionally, the model has been incorporated with newly available bare-earth Digital Terrain Model data, refreshed hydrology aligned with JBA’s latest global methodology, updated land use information, and improved classification of river and surface water flood types, explained the firm.
It now also includes eight CMIP6‑based climate event sets, with a new 2080 timeline and two-hour clauses, improving flexibility for exploring how flood risk may evolve. The model has faster and improved disaggregation based on global building footprints and administrative boundary updates, showcasing evolving geopolitical changes.
While creating climate-conditioned event sets, JBA’s scientifically robust method applies global climate model-derived change factors to the underlying hydrological time series to generate new events, rather than scaling present-day events.
JBA says that this approach alters event frequency, magnitude and spatial coherence in line with projected climate signals, enabling structured exploration of how flood risk may evolve under different warming pathways.
The model’s new exposure disaggregation framework delivers improved placement within building footprints, voids waterbodies, parks, and unsuitable landcover, and enables faster processing.
David Wood, Managing Director, JBA Risk Management, commented, “Our new Global Flood Model’s enhanced functionality, built on our market-leading flood maps, enables our clients around the world to fully understand their flood exposure. They can now easily, and quickly, undertake ‘what if’ investigations based on their own needs, see the impacts on their losses under a range of scenarios, and fully understand individual and portfolio risk profiles.”
