Substantial increase in future fluvial flood risk projected in China’s major urban agglomerations

Abstract Urban land will face high fluvial flood risk against the background of climate change and urban expansion. The effect of urban spatial expansion, instead of densification of assets within existing urban cells, on flood risk has rarely been reported. Here, we project the future flood risk of seven urban agglomerations in China, home to over 750 million people. The inundated urban land areas in the future are projected to be 4 to 19 times that at present. Without considering the urban spatial expansion, the inundated urban land areas will be underestimated by 10-50%. Urban land is more likely to be inundated than non-urban land, and the newly-developed urban land will be inundated more easily than the historical urban land. The results demonstrate the urgency of integrating climate change mitigation, reasonable urban land expansion, and increased flood protection levels to minimize the flood risk in urban land.