Flood Risk Assessment Essay

This PhD dissertation presents developed standardized tools for risk assessment which fill in the current gap between rapid, user-friendly tools and sophisticated tools designed for use by scientists and engineers, with respect to flood risk analysis. This research commenced with an identification of major influencing parameters and data used to compute flood hazard and assess community vulnerability. From these results, key components were identified and applications which compute flood hazard and estimate exposure were developed, with a primary impetus on leveraging open source data and minimal user input while incorporating established equations and processes. This is an article-based PhD dissertation, which is presented and supported through …show more content…
While sophisticated software solutions exist, they are typically based on desktop solutions, requiring commercial programs, extensive processing time, sizable inputs, and knowledge to run and interpret (Leskens, Brugnach, Hoekstra, & Schuurmans, 2014a). As such, they are not well adapted to respond to the needs of the non-expert public safety community to fully understand their own exposure and vulnerability to inundations. On the other hand, timely and accurate prediction of inundation extent and potential impacts and consequences is fundamental for the sustainable development of a given region and provides valuable information necessary for understanding respective exposure and vulnerability (Scawthorn, Blais et al., 2006). Currently, no application is suitable or available specifically for interventions where flooding is imminent or in progress (Poulin, Chokmani, Tanguy, & Bernier, …show more content…
Structure and contents damage resulting from flood hazard are influenced by many factors, however, usually only building use and inundation depth are considered as damage-causing factors and included in the formulation of depth-damage curves (Merz, Kreibich, Thieken, & Schmidtke, 2004). Depth-damage curves relate water depth with estimates of damage to various types of infrastructure to estimate potential damage (Scawthorn, Flores et al., 2006). Depth-damage curves, at a minimum, require two inputs, namely the occupancy classification of the structure and the depth of flooding (Figure 1.3). The output is an estimate of the damage, expressed generally as a percentage of the replacement cost. Depth-damage functions are developed separately for structural or load-bearing components; for contents (e.g.: interior furniture, art, appliances, etc.,); and for inventory in place (e.g.: commercial stock) (FEMA,