Towards the development of a comprehensive systematic quantification of the costs and benefits of property level flood risk adaptation

Application of the concept of cost benefits analysis (CBA) to property level flood risk adaptation measures

Structural Survey ◽

10.1108/ss-12-2012-0043 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 102-122 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Rotimi Joseph ◽

David Proverbs ◽

Jessica Lamond ◽

Peter Wassell

Keyword(s):

Conceptual Framework ◽

Government Policy ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Stated Preference ◽

Cost Ratio ◽

Costs And Benefits ◽

Comprehensive Understanding ◽

Content Type ◽

Intangible Benefits ◽

The Impact

Purpose – There has been a significant increase in flooding in the UK over the past ten years. During this time, Government policy has moved from investment in flood defences towards encouraging property owners to take responsibility for reducing the impact of flooding. One of the ways in which this can be achieved is for homeowners to adapt their properties to flood risk by implementing property level flood risk adaptation (PLFRA) measures. While there has been some attempt to develop an understanding of the benefits of such measures, these previous studies have their limitations in that the intangible benefits have not been fully considered. As such, there remains a need for further development of these studies towards developing a more comprehensive understanding of PLFRA measures. It is against this background the purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual cost benefit analysis (CBA) framework for PLFRA measure. This framework brings together the key parameters of the costs and benefits of adapting properties to flood risk including the intangible benefits, which have so far been overlooked in previous studies. Design/methodology/approach – A critical review of the standard methods and existing CBA models of PLFRA measures was undertaken. A synthesis of this literature and the literature on the nature of flooding and measures to reduce and eliminate their impacts provides the basis for the development of a conceptual framework of the costs and benefits of PLFRA measures. Within the developed framework, particular emphasis is placed on the intangible impacts, as these have largely been excluded from previous studies in the domain of PLFRA measures. Findings – The framework provides a systematic way of assessing the costs and benefits of PLFRA measures. A unique feature of the framework is the inclusion of intangible impacts, such as anxiety and ill health, which are known to be difficult to measure. The study proposes to implement one of the stated preference methods (SPM) of valuation to measure these impacts, known as the willingness to pay method, as part of a survey of homeowners. The inclusion of these intangible impacts provides the potential to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the benefit cost ratio (BCR) for different stakeholders. The newly developed CBA conceptual framework includes four principal components: the tangible benefits to insurers; the tangible benefits to the government; the tangible benefits to homeowners; and the intangible benefits to homeowners. Originality/value – This tool offers the potential to support government policy concerned with increasing the uptake of PLFRA measures through increasing the information available to homeowners and thereby supporting the decision-making process.

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The Value of Citizen Science for Flood Risk Reduction: Cost-benefit Analysis of a Citizen Observatory in the Brenta-Bacchiglione Catchment

10.5194/hess-2019-627 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Michele Ferri ◽

Uta Wehn ◽

Linda See ◽

Steffen Fritz

Keyword(s):

Risk Reduction ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

Benefit Analysis ◽

Costs And Benefits ◽

Public Agencies ◽

Flood Risk Reduction ◽

Reduction Cost

Abstract. Citizen observatories are a relatively recent form of citizen science, which involve citizens in making environmental observations over a period of time. These observations can help to inform the decision making of local authorities and other stakeholders, creating a platform for two-way interaction between citizens and public agencies. Although citizen observatories can clearly generate many different benefits, they also have an associated cost. There are currently no examples of quantifying the costs and benefits of citizen observatories in the literature, yet this type of analysis is critical if there is to be real uptake of citizen observatories by public agencies more generally. This paper presents and applies a generic methodology for capturing the value of a citizen observatory for flood risk reduction in the Brenta-Bacchiglione catchment using a cost-benefit analysis. The results show that the benefits of implementing a citizen observatory approach outweigh the costs by approximately 2 to 1 and can reduce the annual expected damage to a greater degree than a much more costly structural approach.

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Risk-Based Decision-Making for Evacuation in Case of Imminent Threat of Flooding

Water ◽

10.3390/w10101429 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 1429 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Bas Kolen ◽

P.H.A.J.M. van Gelder

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

Water Levels ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Benefit Analysis ◽

Costs And Benefits ◽

Conditional Risk ◽

Imminent Threat

It is important for decision-makers in emergency response situations to determine the scope, scale, timing, path and resettlement area of an evacuation decision when there is an imminent threat of flooding. In this paper, a method called the “Evacuation Diagram” is described to support risk-based evacuation planning and decision-making. In case of an imminent threat of flooding, we refer to the conditional risk, which is the risk given the forecasted water levels and potential consequences during the next days of the event. Given the threat and potential costs and benefits, evacuation decisions have to mitigate this conditional risk. Since evacuation can be costly, decision-makers have to make a trade-off between costs and benefits. In this research we present a method using a cost–benefit analysis approach, in which we adopt the “Dutch flood risk approach” to define the required strength of levees based on flood risk considerations. The “Evacuation Diagram” method is derived from analytical derivations, based on differential weighing of costs and benefits, which have an impact on a binary choice (or a set of discrete choices) as to whether to instruct an area to evacuate or not. Basically, this is an analysis of behavioural decision-making under risk, investigating how a cost–benefit analysis can yield higher cost effectiveness in risk reduction for human lives lost during possible evacuation incidents. The method is applied to a Dutch case study and the results are compared to the outcomes of the largest evacuation exercise ever held in the Netherlands, called ‘Waterproef’. It is concluded that the risk-based evacuation method, as presented in this paper, provides useful insight into collective and authoritative evacuation order decisions.

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Using the research on intergroup conflict in nonhuman animals to help inform patterns of human intergroup conflict

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x19000827 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

Author(s):

Amanda R. Ridley ◽

Melanie O. Mirville

Keyword(s):

Large Body ◽

Nonhuman Animal ◽

Intergroup Conflict ◽

Costs And Benefits ◽

Animal Groups ◽

Interesting Article ◽

Nonhuman Animals

Abstract There is a large body of research on conflict in nonhuman animal groups that measures the costs and benefits of intergroup conflict, and we suggest that much of this evidence is missing from De Dreu and Gross's interesting article. It is a shame this work has been missed, because it provides evidence for interesting ideas put forward in the article.

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