https://phys.org/news/2018-05-europe-years-deaths-financial-losses.html

To learn more about flooding trends in Europe, the researchers conducted searches on a database called the Historical Analysis of Natural Hazards in Europe. It holds information about floods going back to 1870, among other things. In all, they found information on 1,564 floods and the impact of those floods on the people that experienced them.

The researchers found that the number of floods has been climbing, though they were not able to confirm whether that was due to better reporting. They also noted that Europe's population has increased substantially over the past century and a half. They found that in spite of such increases, the number of people killed in floods has actually been decreasing. From the period 1870 to 1950, they found that the number of people dying in floods decreased by approximately 1.4 percent each year. From 1950 to 2016, the percentage improved more, decreasing by 4.3 percent each year. They note that along with an expanded population came a huge increase in wealth, but still, financial losses due to floods fell, most particularly since 1950.