Impacts of Flood Hazards on Small and Medium-Sized Companies: Strategies for Property-Level Protection and Business Continuity

Worldwide, Ÿoods have become one of the costliest weather-related hazards, causing large-scale human, economic, and environmental damage during the recent past. Recent years have seen a large number of such Ÿood events around the globe, with Europe and the United Kingdom being no exception. Currently, about one in six properties in England is at risk of Ÿooding (EA, 2009), and the risk is expected to further increase in the future (Evans et al., 2004). Although public spending on community-level Ÿood protection has increased and some properties are protected by such protection schemes, many properties at risk of Ÿooding may still be left without adequate protection. As far as businesses are concerned, this has led to an increased need for implementing strategies for property-level Ÿood protection and business continuity, in order to improve their capacity to survive a Ÿood hazard.