Nature Communications

Zhong, X., Fishman, T., Tiggeloven, T. et al. Building materials and emissions from rebuilding under increasing climate-driven flood hazards. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-79185-2

Floods threaten lives and infrastructure, while recovery and reconstruction require materials whose production generates greenhouse gas emissions. These material needs and emissions remain insufficiently quantified. Here we assess the impacts of riverine and coastal flooding on building materials across Europe under climate change and land subsidence. Baseline annual replacement demand is about 30 million tonnes of materials, generating about 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. With flood protection maintained but not upgraded, both could increase more than tenfold by 2080 under a moderate emissions scenario, driven by coastal flooding. Impacts could be about 22% higher under a high emissions scenario. Cumulative replacement emissions over 2024–2080 under the moderate scenario could reach 4.0 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, exceeding ten times Europe’s annual building material production emissions in 2020. Increasing both mitigation and adaptation efforts is essential to reduce material losses, further emissions and human suffering.