Author(s): H. W. Betts

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Keywords: Flood damage; Infrastructure; Mitigation

Abstract: The assessment of major infrastructure projects, flood mitigation proposals and floodplain developments often includes estimates of flood damage based on published information, or by reference to a national hazards database. There are known, and difficult to quantify, deficiencies in damage loss estimate processes that should be qualified in a changing economic and climatic environment. These require increased rigour and a standardization of loss assessment methods that should not only include point and linear infrastructure, but agricultural losses, social impacts and where possible the environmental implications of changes to flooding regimes. In recent times there have been a number of developments in this area, including the derivation and updating of velocitystage-damage functions, building content and structural damage loss relationships, as well as investigations into loss models for dam break and coastal inundation. This paper reviews these recent trends, and proposes a series of improvements to evaluation methods.

DOI:

Year: 2011