Gamma expands into Spanish market with flood risk assessment offering

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Gamma Location Intelligence, a Dublin-based leading location intelligence technology company in Ireland and the UK, today announces that it is expanding into the Spanish market with its property risk assessment solutions. This move serves as part of the company’s plan to grow its operations in new international markets following a successful entry into the UK market in 2020.

To showcase the value of this expansion, Gamma has analysed FloodFutures® data from Ambiental Risk Analytics for Spain through its Perilfinder™ platform – which enables insurance companies and local authorities to assess location risk for properties including flooding, fire, subsidence and crime – to reveal provinces in Spain most at risk of flooding.

Gamma Location Intelligence showing flood risk for buildings in Cartagena, Murcia overlaid on flood risk raster data on our Perilfinder platform.

The analysis shows that Gipuzkoa has the highest risk rating per property. The other provinces at higher risk are Bizkaia, Cantabria, Asturias and Pontevedra. Finishing out the top 10 are A Coruña, Huelva, Tarragona, Girona and Cádiz.

However, in terms of the provinces with the highest expected annual loss from flood risk, based on properties at risk and the estimated average damages incurred from flooding (€270,000), the provinces along the Mediterranean coastline rank highest.

Barcelona comes in on top, with an expected annual loss of €17,531,757. It is followed by Valencia (€13,878,134), Sevilla (€12,473,571), Girona (€9,348,161) and Murcia (€8,793,702). Also coming in with an annual cost over €5 million are Tarragona (€7,603,185), Alicante (€6,686,007) and León (€5,951,882).

For the country as a whole, excluding the Canary Islands, the expected annual loss is estimated to be €178,478,423. Based on the total number of properties in each province and the average annual loss per property, Gipuzkia, Asturias and Bizkaia are the most impacted areas.

Richard Cantwell, Senior Spatial Data Scientist, Gamma, said: “The effects of climate change are being felt across the globe and whilst wildfire damage and drought tend to be more prevalent in Spain, flooding also occurs in winter months and is increasing due to climate change. In fact, in the second half of 2021 alone, there were several severe flood events in the likes of Navarra, Cantabria and La Rioja. Terrible floods have also wreaked havoc in recent months across Murcia, Tarragona and Madrid.

“Our aim in Spain, as well as Ireland and the UK, is to assess and visualise the impact of climate change using high-quality data at the individual property level. In turn, this helps local authorities, banks and insurance providers to make better informed decisions, to assess their exposure for climate-related disclosure reporting and to lower investment and underwriting risk. Even though our analysis shows that the predicted physical damage varies greatly across Spain’s climatic regions, the impacts will be felt across the entire country.”

For more information on the analysis regarding Spain, check out this white paper by Gamma: Flooding in Spain: Present and Future.

Gamma Location Intelligence will host a webinar on Tuesday, 29th November @ 10:00 a.m. GMT+1, discussing the key findings from the white paper; you can register below.

@ 2022 Gamma.ie by Monika Ghita

About Gamma

Gamma Location Intelligence is a cloud hosted spatial solutions provider that integrates software, data and services to help our clients reduce risk through location intelligence. Established in Dublin, Ireland in 1993, and with offices in Manchester, UK and Bilbao, Spain, the company has expanded to become a global provider of cloud-native location intelligent solutions. Gamma’s Perilfinder™ risk mapping platform is the number one underwriting solution used by Irish insurers to assess environmental risk. Find out more at https://gamma.ie/

About Ambiental Risk Analytics, a company of Royal HaskoningDHV

Ambiental is a global specialist in multi-peril, environmental hazard intelligence, predictive analytics and risk management. Ambiental provides flood forecasting systems using flood modelling techniques that support better decision-making around flood and climate risk management by predicting the location and severity of flooding, preventing damage, and protecting people, property and assets. It is Ambiental’s belief that all people, property and capital should be resilient to flooding and climate change risks.

Ambiental is a company of Royal HaskoningDHV, which has 140 years of worldwide experience in the field of Industry & Buildings, Aviation, Transport & Planning and Water & Maritime. Designing, building and maintaining sustainable solutions to improve people’s lives and business processes is what we do: Enhancing Society Together.