HR: 09:45h
AN: U31B-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Is Hurricane Mitigation in the United States Cost-Effective?
AU: * Brett, A P
EM:
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering Quad, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
AU: VanMarcke, E
EM:
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering Quad, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
AB: Costs associated with hurricanes have been rising steeply since well before the record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season of 2005; the rise has been especially dramatic since 1980. Many researchers (van der Vink et al., 2005) have demonstrated that these costs are driven by a small number of extreme events. Such events generally overwhelm most or all protection mechanisms in place. When these mechanisms are overwhelmed, many areas which were "protected" suffer damages tantamount to the damages which would have occurred without any protection at all. When this occurs, the best proxy for the cost of the hurricane is simply the amount of people and property in the way of the hurricane. There are several benefits to hurricane mitigation. Any mitigation effort will decrease the expected damages in an area affected by a hurricane provided that the mitigation mechanisms are not overwhelmed. Mitigation efforts will also lessen the probability that these mechanisms are overwhelmed at all. However, mitigation efforts also decrease the perceived risk of moving people and property into the area which the efforts are designed to protect. If mitigation results in more people and property being moved into a vulnerable area, this increases the expected loss for an event which overwhelms mitigation mechanisms. Even if this is a low-probability event, this still increases the overall expected loss in a given year with the mitigation in place. As overall expected losses increase, the net benefit of the mitigation efforts will decrease. This study finds that the above effects of mitigation are not currently taken into account in cost-benefit analyses of mitigation. It examines quantitative relationships between mitigation efforts, population increases, and the resulting changes in expected losses. While it cannot be proven that mitigation efforts in the United States are not cost-effective, the decrease in the net benefits represents a substantial portion of the estimated benefits of mitigation. These impacts should be taken into account whenever new mitigation projects are undertaken.
UR: http:www.princeton.edu/~abrett/Thesis
DE: 0468 Natural hazards
SC: Union [U]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly