Shanghai is deemed to be the most vulnerable city to the risk of serious flooding, a global study suggests.


一项全球调查显示，上海是全球最容易遭受严重洪水危害的城市。

Despite it's economic wealth, the Chinese city was considered to be more exposed to the risk of flooding than much poorer cities, such as Dhaka.

As well as considering a city's physical attributes, the study also considers social and economic factors when rating an area's vulnerability.

Details of the research appear in the journal Natural Hazards.

A team of scientists from the UK and the Netherlands has developed a Coastal City Flood Vulnerability Index (CCFVI), based on exposure, susceptibility and resilience to coastal flooding.

Co-author Nigel Wright, from the University of Leeds' School of Civil Engineering, said that current methods tended to be two dimensional.

"Very often we look at these sorts of things in a very deterministic way," he explained.

"We look at physical exposure, so if you live by a river you are exposed to the risk of flooding."

Prof Wright said that the CCFVI used a range of data, consisting of 19 components.

"We still use the physical ones but also economic and social ones, such as how much attention is given by local or national governments to protect citizens and citizens' property through investing in various forms of resilience," he told BBC News.

These included the percentage of a city's population living close to the coastline; the amount of time needed for a city to recover from flooding; the amount of uncontrolled development along the coastline, as well as the volume of measures to physically prevent floodwater entering a city.
更多英语新闻