摘要：Effective flood risk management requires a realistic estimation of flood losses. However, available flood damage estimates are still characterizedby significant levels of uncertainty, questioning the capacity of flood damage models to depict real damages. With a joint effort of eightinternational research groups, the objective of this study was to compare, in a blind-validation test, the performances of different models for theassessment of the direct flood damage to the residential sector at the building level (i.e. microscale). The test consisted of a common flood casestudy characterized by high availability of hazard and building data but with undisclosed information on observed losses in the implementationstage of the models. The nine selected models were chosen in order to guarantee a good mastery of the models by the research teams, variety of themodelling approaches, and heterogeneity of the original calibration context in relation to both hazard and vulnerability features. By avoidingpossible biases in model implementation, this blind comparison provided more objective insights on the transferability of the models and on thereliability of their estimations, especially regarding the potentials of local and multivariable models. From another perspective, the exerciseallowed us to increase awareness of strengths and limits of flood damage modelling, which are summarized in the paper in the form of take-home messagesfrom a modeller's perspective.
