Tangible and Intangible Flood damage evaluation

Abstract

Flooding and flash floods that cause significant economic and social damage have been widely studied in the last few decades. The European Commission Flood Directive 2007/60 Flood Risk Management Plans require the assessment of potential damage to give an appreciation of the magnitude of the consequences of a flood event and so help stakeholders to use a cost benefit approach to planning flood mitigation measures. This paper evaluates the direct tangible flood damage applying the JRC water depth-damage functions for the European territory to estimate the potential economic damage. Intangible damage is evaluated with the Life Safety Model (LSM) to study the dynamic interactions among people, vehicles, buildings and the flood wave. LSM assesses potential flood damage and allows the development of a Flood Evacuation Plan in case of an emergency, underlining the evacuation routes adopted by people and vehicles. This enables emergency managers to avoid evacuation bottleneck problems and identify areas of potential high mortality. The impact of changes such as road network improvements, the location of safe havens and timing of flood warnings can be assessed in terms of potential loss of life. The developed methodology has been applied on the Sardinian Flood Risk Management Plan pilot basin, the Coghinas river lowland basin.