Unveiling hidden risks in healthcare from flood-induced transportation disruption in Germany

This study explores the impact of flooding, which continues to disrupt healthcare systems, both by limiting access and through failures in the surrounding transportation network. The method, designed for reproducibility and scalability, identifies hospitals at risk of emergency response delays and service disruptions caused by flood-induced traffic impacts. This study builds on existing models for mitigation planning by including critical dynamics, such as traffic rerouting, that are often overlooked. The modelling involved the combination of a regional flood model with a gravity-based traffic model to simulate traffic flow from open-source road data.

The findings reveal hidden risks for hospitals located far from flood zones, showing how flood-related road disruptions and traffic rerouting can reduce access to critical healthcare services. In particular, the study found 75 (of 2,475) hospitals at risk of patient surges beyond their regular capacity, driven solely by flood-related traffic disruptions. Of these, a third are more than 10 km from the nearest inundation, suggesting these facilities may be unaware and thus under-prepared - risks that have, until now, remained hidden from assessments. Overall, this study highlights the critical vulnerabilities of healthcare systems to the indirect impacts of flooding, emphasizing the crucial role of transportation networks and trans-boundary dynamics in disaster resilience.