10.57647/j.jap.2025.0901.02

Identifying the causes of floods and assessing the resulting environmental damage to provide a flood compensation model

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  • Mohammad Zahednia1,
  • Shirin Shirazian*1,
  • Mohammad Reza Miri Lavasani2,
  • Hanie Nekoomaram2,
  • Mansour Pournouri3,
  1. Department of Environmental Law, SR.C, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
  2. Department of Environmental management, ,sr.c., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
  3. Environmental Education Group, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment, Tehran, Iran.

Received: 2025-05-20

Revised: 2025-06-07

Accepted: 2025-06-17

Published in Issue 2025-07-01

Copyright (c) 2025 Mohammad Zahednia, Shirin Shirazian, Mohammad Reza Miri Lavasani, Hanie Nekoomaram, Mansour Pournouri (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Zahednia, M., Shirazian, S., Miri Lavasani, M. R., Nekoomaram, H., & Pournouri, M. (2025). Identifying the causes of floods and assessing the resulting environmental damage to provide a flood compensation model. Anthropogenic Pollution, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.57647/j.jap.2025.0901.02
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Abstract

Natural disasters can cause significant environmental damage and pollution, including floods that cause significant loss of life and environmental damage. Hence, modeling the compensation of such losses and utilizing specific strategies such as flood insurance can be considered effective solutions for compensation. Accordingly, the present study attempted to first identify flood damages using the Delphi method. Then, the identified criteria were prioritized through Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Finally, the data were analyzed to provide a flood insurance and compensation model using national and international insurance laws and regulations. The results showed that, among the main criteria of flood damage, financial, human, and environmental losses were ranked most important with relative weights of 0.217, 0.191, and 0.178, respectively, and social damages were ranked least important with a weight of 0.108. Moreover, the most important sub-criteria, in order of priority, were building destruction (0.115), loss of life (0.110), and water pollution (0.084). To conclude, understanding the legal challenges associated with compensation is crucial in developing effective flood insurance plans. The legal challenges of natural catastrophe compensation involve a complex interplay of liability laws, both civil and criminal, insurance mechanisms, and the broader socio-economic impacts on affected communities. The distinctive and innovative proposal of providing a flood insurance plan with independent legal, technical, and structural frameworks and indicators based on the environmental insurance development approach is a suitable model for flood compensation. Developing a flood insurance scheme that effectively compensates for natural disaster losses requires addressing numerous legal challenges, including establishing a clear regulatory framework, managing flood risks, designing equitable compensation mechanisms, determining the roles of the public and private sectors, ensuring coordination across jurisdictions, and adapting to the impacts of climate change

Keywords

  • Natural disasters,
  • Floods,
  • Damage ranking,
  • Analytic Hierarchy Process,
  • Flood insurance,
  • Legal challenges
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