Identifying the causes of floods and assessing the resulting environmental damage to provide a flood compensation model

Natural disasters can cause significant environmental damage and pollution, including floods that cause significant loss of life and environmental damage. Hence, modeling the compensation of such losses and utilizing specific strategies such as flood insurance can be considered effective solutions for compensation. Accordingly, the present study attempted to first identify flood damages using the Delphi method. Then, the identified criteria were prioritized through Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Finally, the data were analyzed to provide a flood insurance and compensation model using national and international insurance laws and regulations. The results showed that, among the main criteria of flood damage, financial, human, and environmental losses were ranked most important with relative weights of 0.217, 0.191, and 0.178, respectively, and social damages were ranked least important with a weight of 0.108. Moreover, the most important sub-criteria, in order of priority, were building destruction (0.115), loss of life (0.110), and water pollution (0.084). To conclude, understanding the legal challenges associated with compensation is crucial in developing effective flood insurance plans. The legal challenges of natural catastrophe compensation involve a complex interplay of liability laws, both civil and criminal, insurance mechanisms, and the broader socio-economic impacts on affected communities. The distinctive and innovative proposal of providing a flood insurance plan with independent legal, technical, and structural frameworks and indicators based on the environmental insurance development approach is a suitable model for flood compensation. Developing a flood insurance scheme that effectively compensates for natural disaster losses requires addressing numerous legal challenges, including establishing a clear regulatory framework, managing flood risks, designing equitable compensation mechanisms, determining the roles of the public and private sectors, ensuring coordination across jurisdictions, and adapting to the impacts of climate change