Methodology for the damage assessment of vehicles exposed to flooding in urban areas

Abstract

Within urban areas, humans carry out a great diversity of activities, and some of them require the use of vehicles. Floods, especially in urban areas, can generate significant tangible direct damages to vehicles themselves and to the urban elements in case of loss of stability and collision, which cannot be dismissed. In this paper, after a state-of-the-art review on damage curves for vehicles, a methodology to assess the direct economic impact for vehicles exposed to flooding has been described, and applied within a study carried out in the framework of the BINGO H2020 EU Project. Only three different studies focused on damages to vehicles in contact with floodwater have been found. Contrasting damage curves for vehicles are found when comparing the three approaches, however, the ones proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) offer a high level of completeness and accuracy. Moreover, USACE's development is the most current research and all the steps for the development of the damage curves are comprehensively described. Finally, after the description of a detailed methodology for flood damage mapping for vehicles, a procedure to evaluate the Expected Annual Damage for vehicles is offered.