{
  "abstract": "Exposure to flood hazards in high mountain catchments is expected to increase alongside natural hazards, driven by climate change, glacier retreat, and landscape evolution, yet temporally consistent, high-resolution exposure data remain scarce. Here we quantify changes in the exposure of buildings and people to flooding in Nepal and transboundary regions of India and China. Validation against a manually derived reference dataset revealed considerable differences in accuracy and completeness across five building footprint products. Google Open Buildings Temporal 2.5D (OBT) displayed the highest median accuracy (F1 = 0.68), followed by Google Open Buildings V3 (F1 = 0.62). We assessed exposure relative to river channels using the height above nearest drainage (HAND) metric and modelled glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) inundation extents. Building area within 0–50 m vertical proximity to channels increased by 46% between 2016 and 2023, while those located within modelled GLOF extents increased by 77%. Population projections indicate continued growth in areas of potential flood exposure, with 18% ( n = 293,800) of the study-area catchment population estimated to reside within 0–50 m HAND in 2026. Our results demonstrate rapidly increasing exposure in Himalayan catchments and highlight the importance of validated, multi-temporal exposure datasets to inform disaster risk reduction.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 9,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "C. Scott Watson",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-2656-961X"
    },
    {
      "name": "Lauren D. Rawlins",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-7538-7228"
    },
    {
      "name": "Mohan B. Chand",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3691-7219"
    },
    {
      "name": "Rakesh Bhambri",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4777-894X"
    },
    {
      "name": "Nitesh Khadka",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0454-6652"
    },
    {
      "name": "Milan Shrestha",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4758-515X"
    },
    {
      "name": "K. C. Deepak",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-2001-9625"
    },
    {
      "name": "Daniel Routledge"
    },
    {
      "name": "Grace Middleditch"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6yjz26gfg6p9y.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41598-026-70268-0",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "6yjz26gfg6p9y",
  "issns": [
    "2045-2322"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-70268-0",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2306|Flood Risk Assessment and Management"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7220949696",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-70268-0.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-08",
  "publisher": "Springer Science and Business Media LLC",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6yjz26gfg6p9y.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:24Z",
      "native_id": "10.1038/s41598-026-70268-0",
      "source": "crossref",
      "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-70268-0"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "earth",
      "origin": "openalex:2306|Flood Risk Assessment and Management",
      "subfield": "climate"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Increasing exposure to potential flooding in high-mountain catchments",
  "title_text": "Increasing exposure to potential flooding in high-mountain catchments",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:24Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6yjz26gfg6p9y",
  "venue": "Scientific Reports",
  "versions": []
}