Implementing the Floods Directive: the case of the Umbria Region

The “Floods” Directive asks Member States to develop flood risk maps by 2013. In such a con-text, this paper describes the ongoing activity in Central Italy to estimate adverse consequences on the built environment, with the general aim of accomplishing the Directive. Starting from hazard intensities and flood damages which occurred during past flood events, this paper describes the activity carried out to identify depth-damage curves suitable for the context under investigation. The validation procedure will allow second-ary questions to be addressed: (i) the first relates to the definition of best practices for validation of damage data (ii) then, vulnerability/hazard factors which most influence the value of flood damage can be identified, (iii) finally it is possible to recognize those features that should be recorded and kept updated in a GIS data-base to support damage modeling and development of risk maps.