Why the Capacity to Recover Matters in Assessing Farm Vulnerability to Flooding: A Modelling Approach at Farm Level, Ava Model

Vulnerability to climate hazards has two components: sensitivity and capacity to recover. While sensitivity is related to biophysical phenomena, recovery requires modelling the functioning of the system and the interactions between internal and external resources. The Agricultural Vulnerability Assessment (AVA) model takes both components into account to provide a monetary assessment of the vulnerability of farms to flooding. Applied to the Rhône Valley, we show that the damage suffered by farmers is highly dependent on access to external resources. Even outside the harvest period, flood scenarios can cause damage to farms that jeopardises their financial viability if they cannot rely on solidarity. The financial situation of farms can be threatened even during crop dormancy. This has important operational implications for flood management policies that inundate farmland and encourages greater attention to be paid to farm vulnerability assessments.