HR: 10:20h
AN: H42C-01    [Abstracts]
TI: New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina: An Unnatural Disaster?
AU: * McNamara, D
EM: dmcnamara@ucsd.edu
AF: Complex Systems Laboratory, Cecil and Ida Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, UCSD, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0225 United States
AU: Werner, B
EM: bwerner@ucsd.edu
AF: Complex Systems Laboratory, Cecil and Ida Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, UCSD, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0225 United States
AU: Kelso, A
H42C-01 AF: Complex Systems Laboratory, Cecil and Ida Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, UCSD, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0225 United States
AB: Motivated by destruction in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina, we use a numerical model to explore how natural processes, economic development, hazard mitigation measures and policy decisions intertwine to produce long periods of quiescence punctuated by disasters of increasing magnitude. Physical, economic and policy dynamics are modeled on a grid representing the subsiding Mississippi Delta region surrounding New Orleans. Water flow and resulting sediment erosion and deposition are simulated in response to prescribed river floods and storms. Economic development operates on a limited number of commodities and services such as agricultural products, oil and chemical industries and port services, with investment and employment responding to both local conditions and global constraints. Development permitting, artificial levee construction and pumping are implemented by policy agents who weigh predicted economic benefits (tax revenue), mitigation costs and potential hazards. Economic risk is reduced by a combination of private insurance, federal flood insurance and disaster relief. With this model, we simulate the initiation and growth of New Orleans coupled with an increasing level of protection from a series of flooding events. Hazard mitigation filters out small magnitude events, but terrain and hydrological modifications amplify the impact of large events. In our model, "natural disasters" are the inevitable outcome of the mismatch between policy based on short-time-scale economic calculations and stochastic forcing by infrequent, high-magnitude flooding events. A comparison of the hazard mitigation response to river- and hurricane-induced flooding will be discussed. Supported by NSF Geology and Paleontology and the Andrew W Mellon Foundation.
DE: 0545 Modeling (4255)
DE: 1824 Geomorphology: general (1625)
DE: 4430 Complex systems
DE: 4435 Emergent phenomena
DE: 6349 General or miscellaneous
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005