Damage assessment in the stress field of scale, comparability and transferability

Abstract

Damage assessment is an important task requested in very different contexts. On the one hand very detailed studies are required for cost benefit analysis, on the other hand vulnerability and risk needs to be evaluated for political decisions and emergency situations (i.e. loss estimation of a large scale flood event). Even though a lot of studies have been performed and a lot of different methods are available by now, it is very difficult to use the results in the decision making process, as many methods are poorly described or are based on very special data, and therefore cannot be compared to each other. The attempt of regional (German federal state level) standardizations based on very detailed object based approaches are shown. Additionally, a European wide data set for asset mapping is described and a set of application examples is given. It is designed to enable users to compare the impact of different types of hazard. To take it one step further, a global map for vulnerability is presented that can be used to set up a monetary based data set if detailed statistical data is not available. Every type of data set and methodology has its special tasks to fulfil but there is also a high demand for harmonisation and comparability between different studies to enable better decision making. The next demand on data sets and methodologies is to perform time sequence analyses, therefore all data sets and methods presented fulfil the requirement of being updated regularly.