Flood Vulnerability Usage for Flood Risk Assessment in the Republic of Moldova

Vulnerability is the extent of harm, which can be expected under certain conditions of exposure, susceptibility and resilience. The most recent flood events in 2008 and 2010, occurred on the territory, demonstrated that the country is vulnerable to inundation. The concept of vulnerability covers three dimensions: social, economic, and environmental. In this paper the focus will be given on the economic dimension of the flood vulnerability. In the framework of the Management and Technical Assistance Support to Moldova Flood Protection Project a damage model was applied at a national scale using three land-use classes. Evaluation of economic damages has been performed using depth-damage curves for each land-use type. These depth-damage functions have been built taking into account data and functions found in literature and the particular characteristics of assets in Moldova.