The Flood Damage Database HOWAS21 contains object-specific flood damage data resulting from different flood types, primarily from fluvial, but also from pluvial or groundwater flooding. The datasets incorporate various pieces of information about flood impacts, exposure, vulnerability, and direct tangible damage at properties from several economic sectors. The main purpose of development and design of HOWAS21 is to support forensic flood analysis and the derivation of flood damage estimation models.

HOWAS21 is based on a user-community concept: organisations that provide an flood damage data in appropriate quantity and quality for HOWAS21 will get full access to all data via the web site.

The following publications provide more insights into the concept and data structure of HOWAS21:

• Thieken, A.H., Seifert, I., Merz B. (Hrsg.)(2010): Hochwasserschäden - Erfassung, Abschätzung und Vermeidung. oekom-Verlag, München, 304 Seiten. Kapitel 4 zum Download
• Kreibich, H., Thieken, A., Haubrock, S.-N., Schröter, K. (2017): HOWAS21, the German Flood Damage Database. - In: Molinari, D., Menoni, S., Ballio, F. (Eds.), Flood Damage Survey and Assessment: New Insights from Research and Practice, New York, NY : Wiley, 65-75. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119217930.ch5
• Kellermann, P., Schröter, K., Thieken, A.H., Haubrock, S.-N., Kreibich, H. (2020) The object-specific flood damage database HOWAS21. NHESS, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2019-420