© Author(s) 2014. CC Attribution 3.0 License. The KULTURisk Regional Risk Assessment methodology for water-related natural hazards – Part 1: Physical–environmental

Abstract. In recent years, the frequency of catastrophes in-duced by natural hazards has increased, and flood events in particular have been recognized as one of the most threat-ening water-related disasters. Severe floods have occurred in Europe over the last decade, causing loss of life, dis-placement of people and heavy economic losses. Flood dis-asters are growing in frequency as a consequence of many factors, both climatic and non-climatic. Indeed, the current increase of water-related disasters can be mainly attributed to the increase of exposure (elements potentially at risk in flood-prone area) and vulnerability (i.e. economic, social, geographic, cultural and physical/environmental character-istics of the exposure). Besides these factors, the undeni-able effect of climate change is projected to strongly mod-ify the usual pattern of the hydrological cycle by intensi