Comment on "Flooding Is Not like Filling a Bath" by Sanders et al.
Abstract
In their commentary "Flooding is not like filling a Bath" in Earth's Future (https://doi.org/10. 1029/2024EF005164) Sanders and colleagues highlight biases and uncertainties in the application of bathtub modeling for assessing flood risks, specifically for coastal assessments at broad scales (world-regional to global scales). This is a laudable and timely undertaking. Sanders et al., however, also draw a number of farreaching conclusions including a general call to abandon the bathtub model together with a claim that the bathtub model introduces unacceptable levels of uncertainty, and that its broad scale applications have contributed to a "climate hype" exaggerating the impacts of climate change. In our opinion, these conclusions are misleading and don't follow from the author's analysis, because the authors take an overly narrow perspective on flood risk. Addressing this issue, this comment characterizes the system problem of assessing current and future coastal flood risk at broad scales, discusses the roles that bathtub and physics-based models play in addressing this problem, as well as the implications for communicating and receiving information on future flood risk at broad scale. Three conclusions are drawn. First, there is no one-size-fits-all model for assessing coastal flood hazard at broad scales and the bathtub model and its variants still have a role to play. Second, physics-based models are computationally too expensive to deliver the multitude of simulations needed for future flood risk and adaptation. Third, future work needs to create a framework to most effectively utilize physics-based models, emulators of them and bathtub-based models for broad scale assessments.
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BibTeX
@article{hinkel2026comment,
title = {{Comment on "Flooding Is Not like Filling a Bath" by Sanders et al.}},
author = {Jochen Hinkel and Gonéri Le Cozannet and Daniel Lincke and Robert Nicholls and Ulysse Pasquier and Alexandra Toimil and Athanasios Vafeidis and Vanessa Völz},
journal = {Earth's Future},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.1029/2025ef006803},
url = {https://brgm.hal.science/hal-05734101v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Comment on "Flooding Is Not like Filling a Bath" by Sanders et al.
AU - Jochen Hinkel
AU - Gonéri Le Cozannet
AU - Daniel Lincke
AU - Robert Nicholls
AU - Ulysse Pasquier
AU - Alexandra Toimil
AU - Athanasios Vafeidis
AU - Vanessa Völz
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/27
JO - Earth's Future
DO - 10.1029/2025ef006803
UR - https://brgm.hal.science/hal-05734101v1
AB - In their commentary "Flooding is not like filling a Bath" in Earth's Future (https://doi.org/10. 1029/2024EF005164) Sanders and colleagues highlight biases and uncertainties in the application of bathtub modeling for assessing flood risks, specifically for coastal assessments at broad scales (world-regional to global scales). This is a laudable and timely undertaking. Sanders et al., however, also draw a number of farreaching conclusions including a general call to abandon the bathtub model together with a claim that the bathtub model introduces unacceptable levels of uncertainty, and that its broad scale applications have contributed to a "climate hype" exaggerating the impacts of climate change. In our opinion, these conclusions are misleading and don't follow from the author's analysis, because the authors take an overly narrow perspective on flood risk. Addressing this issue, this comment characterizes the system problem of assessing current and future coastal flood risk at broad scales, discusses the roles that bathtub and physics-based models play in addressing this problem, as well as the implications for communicating and receiving information on future flood risk at broad scale. Three conclusions are drawn. First, there is no one-size-fits-all model for assessing coastal flood hazard at broad scales and the bathtub model and its variants still have a role to play. Second, physics-based models are computationally too expensive to deliver the multitude of simulations needed for future flood risk and adaptation. Third, future work needs to create a framework to most effectively utilize physics-based models, emulators of them and bathtub-based models for broad scale assessments.
SN - 2328-4277
SN - 2328-4277
ER -