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Präventionsstiftung
der Kantonalen
Gebäudeversicherungen
Bundesgasse 20
3011 Bern
+41 31 320 22 22 |
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Elemental damage
Public Building Insurance Company damage statistics show that over a ten year average, 95% of building loss settlements result from storms, hail and flooding. 5% of the building losses were caused by avalanches/snow pressure and landslides.
The future development of elemental damage is closely connected to climatic changes. Climate development projections are all undermined by significant uncertainties caused by the complexity of the system which depends on many feedback mechanisms as yet insufficiently understood by scientists. It has, however, been demonstrated that the average global temperature has increased by 0.6 ± 0.2°C1 in the last century. Current research assumes that the global warming which has been observed is mainly of human origin, and is caused in particular by the increase in carbon dioxide emissions.
Climate scenarios issued by the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change” (IPCC) project – depending on the emissions scenario – that by the year 2100 the global temperature will have increased by 1.4 to 5.8° compared to 1990. The entire hydrologic cycle is affected by this and marked changes in precipitation patterns can be expected as a result. Average winter precipitation during the 20th century in the northerly and westerly alpine regions can be shown to have increased by 20 to 30%2. In addition, intensive daily precipitation in Switzerland in large areas of the midlands and the northern edge of the Alps has increased. Extremely heavy precipitation can lead to flooding, debris flow and landslides. As the glaciers retreat, and the permafrost regions thaw, significant detritus is released which, when combined with increased precipitation in the alpine areas, could lead to increasingly unstable slopes3.
A series of measurements shows that, since 1940, there has been an increase in major weather situations which cause violent hailstorms4. The „Advisory Body on Climatic Change“ (OcCC) expects, based on current understanding of the processes involved, that certain extreme weather events such as heavy precipitation and flooding will occur more frequently and intensively in the winter months and that flow slides will increase in Switzerland.
1 IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 881 p., 2001.
2 Frei, Ch. Starkniederschläge. OcCC, Bärenplatz 2, 3011 Bern. ISBN-Nr: 3-907630-23-8, p. 61-64, 2003.
3 Lateltin, O., Beer, Ch., Raetzo, H. und Caron, Ch. Landslides in Flysch terranes and climate change. Eclogae geol. Helv. 90/3, 1997.
4 Schiesser, H.-H. Hagel. OcCC, Bärenplatz 2, 3011 Bern. ISBN-Nr: 3-907630-23-8, p. 65-68, 2003.
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Disasters and how to cope with them more |
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Damage statistics show that over a ten year more |
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The foundation also funds projects which aim more |
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