scholarly journals Ex post damage assessment: an Italian experience

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-916 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Molinari ◽  
S. Menoni ◽  
G. T. Aronica ◽  
F. Ballio ◽  
N. Berni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Recovery Phase ◽  
Flood Damage ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Damage Models ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
And Storage

Abstract. In recent years, awareness of a need for more effective disaster data collection, storage, and sharing of analyses has developed in many parts of the world. In line with this advance, Italian local authorities have expressed the need for enhanced methods and procedures for post-event damage assessment in order to obtain data that can serve numerous purposes: to create a reliable and consistent database on the basis of which damage models can be defined or validated; and to supply a comprehensive scenario of flooding impacts according to which priorities can be identified during the emergency and recovery phase, and the compensation due to citizens from insurers or local authorities can be established. This paper studies this context, and describes ongoing activities in the Umbria and Sicily regions of Italy intended to identifying new tools and procedures for flood damage data surveys and storage in the aftermath of floods. In the first part of the paper, the current procedures for data gathering in Italy are analysed. The analysis shows that the available knowledge does not enable the definition or validation of damage curves, as information is poor, fragmented, and inconsistent. A new procedure for data collection and storage is therefore proposed. The entire analysis was carried out at a local level for the residential and commercial sectors only. The objective of the next steps for the research in the short term will be (i) to extend the procedure to other types of damage, and (ii) to make the procedure operational with the Italian Civil Protection system. The long-term aim is to develop specific depth–damage curves for Italian contexts.

Flood Damage Assessments: Theory and Evidence From the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Bakkensen ◽  
Logan Blair
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Flood Damage ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Flood Damage Assessment ◽  
Flood Losses

Flooding remains one of the globe’s most devastating natural hazards and a leading driver of natural disaster losses across many countries, including the United States. As such, a rich and growing literature aims to better understand, model, and assess flood losses. Several major theoretical and empirical themes emerge from the literature. Fundamental to the flood damage assessment literature are definitions of flood damage, including a typology of flood damage, such as direct and indirect losses. In addition, the literature theoretically and empirically assesses major determinants of flood damage including hydrological factors, measurement of the physical features in harm’s way, as well as understanding and modeling protective activities, such as flood risk mitigation and adaptation, that all co-determine the overall flood losses. From there, common methods to quantify flood damage take these factors as inputs, modeling hydrological risk, exposure, and vulnerability into quantifiable flood loss estimates through a flood damage function, and include both ex ante expected loss assessments and ex post event-specific analyses. To do so, high-quality data are key across all model steps and can be found across a variety of sources. Early 21st-century advancements in spatial data and remote sensing push the literature forward. While topics and themes apply more generally to flood damage across the globe, examples from the United States illustrate key topics. Understanding main themes and insights in this important research area is critical for researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners to better understand, utilize, and extend existing flood damage assessment literatures in order to lessen or even prevent future tragedy.

scholarly journals Review article "Assessment of economic flood damage"

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1697-1724 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Merz ◽  
H. Kreibich ◽  
R. Schwarze ◽  
A. Thieken
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Flood Control ◽  
Natural Hazard ◽  
Model Development ◽  
Flood Damage ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Flood Damage Assessment

Abstract. Damage assessments of natural hazards supply crucial information to decision support and policy development in the fields of natural hazard management and adaptation planning to climate change. Specifically, the estimation of economic flood damage is gaining greater importance as flood risk management is becoming the dominant approach of flood control policies throughout Europe. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art and identifies research directions of economic flood damage assessment. Despite the fact that considerable research effort has been spent and progress has been made on damage data collection, data analysis and model development in recent years, there still seems to be a mismatch between the relevance of damage assessments and the quality of the available models and datasets. Often, simple approaches are used, mainly due to limitations in available data and knowledge on damage mechanisms. The results of damage assessments depend on many assumptions, e.g. the selection of spatial and temporal boundaries, and there are many pitfalls in economic evaluation, e.g. the choice between replacement costs or depreciated values. Much larger efforts are required for empirical and synthetic data collection and for providing consistent, reliable data to scientists and practitioners. A major shortcoming of damage modelling is that model validation is scarcely performed. Uncertainty analyses and thorough scrutiny of model inputs and assumptions should be mandatory for each damage model development and application, respectively. In our view, flood risk assessments are often not well balanced. Much more attention is given to the hazard assessment part, whereas damage assessment is treated as some kind of appendix within the risk analysis. Advances in flood damage assessment could trigger subsequent methodological improvements in other natural hazard areas with comparable time-space properties.

scholarly journals Damage assessment in Braunsbach 2016: data collection and analysis for an improved understanding of damaging processes during flash floods

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. 2163-2179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Laudan ◽  
Viktor Rözer ◽  
Tobias Sieg ◽  
Kristin Vogel ◽  
Annegret H. Thieken
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Structural Damage ◽  
Flash Flood ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Driving Factors ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Damage Grades

Abstract. Flash floods are caused by intense rainfall events and represent an insufficiently understood phenomenon in Germany. As a result of higher precipitation intensities, flash floods might occur more frequently in future. In combination with changing land use patterns and urbanisation, damage mitigation, insurance and risk management in flash-flood-prone regions are becoming increasingly important. However, a better understanding of damage caused by flash floods requires ex post collection of relevant but yet sparsely available information for research. At the end of May 2016, very high and concentrated rainfall intensities led to severe flash floods in several southern German municipalities. The small town of Braunsbach stood as a prime example of the devastating potential of such events. Eight to ten days after the flash flood event, damage assessment and data collection were conducted in Braunsbach by investigating all affected buildings and their surroundings. To record and store the data on site, the open-source software bundle KoBoCollect was used as an efficient and easy way to gather information. Since the damage driving factors of flash floods are expected to differ from those of riverine flooding, a post-hoc data analysis was performed, aiming to identify the influence of flood processes and building attributes on damage grades, which reflect the extent of structural damage. Data analyses include the application of random forest, a random general linear model and multinomial logistic regression as well as the construction of a local impact map to reveal influences on the damage grades. Further, a Spearman's Rho correlation matrix was calculated. The results reveal that the damage driving factors of flash floods differ from those of riverine floods to a certain extent. The exposition of a building in flow direction shows an especially strong correlation with the damage grade and has a high predictive power within the constructed damage models. Additionally, the results suggest that building materials as well as various building aspects, such as the existence of a shop window and the surroundings, might have an effect on the resulting damage. To verify and confirm the outcomes as well as to support future mitigation strategies, risk management and planning, more comprehensive and systematic data collection is necessary.

scholarly journals Multi-variate flood damage assessment: a tree-based data-mining approach

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Merz ◽  
H. Kreibich ◽  
U. Lall
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Flood Damage ◽  
Damage Functions ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Promising Alternative ◽  
Damage Models ◽  
Inundation Depth ◽  
Flood Damage Assessment

Abstract. The usual approach for flood damage assessment consists of stage-damage functions which relate the relative or absolute damage for a certain class of objects to the inundation depth. Other characteristics of the flooding situation and of the flooded object are rarely taken into account, although flood damage is influenced by a variety of factors. We apply a group of data-mining techniques, known as tree-structured models, to flood damage assessment. A very comprehensive data set of more than 1000 records of direct building damage of private households in Germany is used. Each record contains details about a large variety of potential damage-influencing characteristics, such as hydrological and hydraulic aspects of the flooding situation, early warning and emergency measures undertaken, state of precaution of the household, building characteristics and socio-economic status of the household. Regression trees and bagging decision trees are used to select the more important damage-influencing variables and to derive multi-variate flood damage models. It is shown that these models outperform existing models, and that tree-structured models are a promising alternative to traditional damage models.

scholarly journals INSYDE: a synthetic, probabilistic flood damage model based on explicit cost analysis

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Dottori ◽  
Rui Figueiredo ◽  
Mario Martina ◽  
Daniela Molinari ◽  
Anna Rita Scorzini
Keyword(s):  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Damage Model ◽  
Flood Damage ◽  
Physical Damage ◽  
Damage Functions ◽  
Technical Literature ◽  
Actual Knowledge ◽  
Damage Models ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Risk Assessment And Management

Abstract. Methodologies to estimate economic flood damages are increasingly important for flood risk assessment and management. In this work, we present a new synthetic flood damage model based on a component-by-component analysis of physical damage to buildings. The damage functions are designed using an expert-based approach with the support of existing scientific and technical literature, and have been calibrated with loss adjustment studies and damage surveys carried out for past flood events in Italy. The model structure is designed to be transparent and flexible, and therefore it can be applied in different geographical contexts and adapted to the actual knowledge of hazard and vulnerability variables. The model has been tested in a recent flood event in Northern Italy. Validation results provided good estimates of post-event damages, with better performances than most damage models available in the literature. In addition, a local sensitivity analysis has been performed, in order to identify the hazard variables that have more influence on damage assessment results.

Kommunaler Bail-out oder beschränkte Insolvenzfähigkeit? – Zum Umgang mit überschuldeten Kommunen

2014 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
Logical Consequence ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
Fiscal Year ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Soft Budget Constraints ◽  
Fiscal Autonomy ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Bail Out

AbstractRainer Kambeck explains that municipality budgets in Germany finished the fiscal year 2013 in total with a surplus of 1.7 bn Euro. In addition, the current year their overall budget will conclude with a surplus. However, there are huge differences in the situation of local budgets. Numerous local authorities have serious problems to balance their budget due to structurally overburden expenditures and due to outstanding large dept levels, especially in terms of “Cash Credits”. The Länder have started to set up different bail out mechanisms because they are responsible for the financial reliability of their local authorities.Credit is the backbone of capitalism because credit allows allocating resources efficiently to economic activities argue Charles B. Blankart and David Christoh Ehmke. For the case of distress, a bankruptcy regime is established which allows reviving viable but financially distressed businesses and to liquidate structurally distressed businesses in an orderly asset distribution procedure. Bankruptcy is ex ante of utmost importance because it incentivizes debtors and creditors to adjust credit costs and lending practice to expect ex post outcomes. Bankruptcy has, however, been abolished under socialism leading to systems of soft budget constraints which are lenient towards inefficient managements. Since the fall of socialism, mixed capitalist- socialist economies prevail in most countries of the world with bankruptcy procedures for private enterprises, but not for public entities, more importantly, even restructuring procedures are not available for these public establishments. Instead, debt brakes should do the job. However, debt brakes invite governments to externalize public debts and to shift them to lower entities - from the state to the local level - leading to “institutional incongruence”, i. e. the drifting apart of the circles of beneficiaries, decision makers, and taxpayers. Three models of institutional congruence are analyzed by, ranging between vertical fiscal control and fiscal autonomy. The logical consequence of fiscal autonomy is then the establishment of restructuring procedures, which are presented along the procedures of Chapter 9 of the US Bankruptcy Act and private ordering procedures such like those of the Paris and the London Club.Generally spoken, there are good reasons for such bail out programs. However, they should be organized in such a way, that the tax wedge on trade (Gewerbesteuer) and property (Grundsteuer) does not increase continuously. But also there is already data indicating such as development. A rising tax burden, however, weakens the position of our companies in global competition. Therefore, the programs have to be evaluated on a scientific basis. In some cases, they have to be adapted. Budget authorities should focus more on cutting expenses because it usually is the best way to ease the budgetary situation sustainably. At the same time, it helps to avoid rising multipliers in impersonal taxes.

scholarly journals INSYDE: a synthetic, probabilistic flood damage model based on explicit cost analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 2577-2591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Dottori ◽  
Rui Figueiredo ◽  
Mario L. V. Martina ◽  
Daniela Molinari ◽  
Anna Rita Scorzini
Keyword(s):  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Damage Model ◽  
Flood Damage ◽  
Physical Damage ◽  
Damage Functions ◽  
Technical Literature ◽  
Actual Knowledge ◽  
Damage Models ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Risk Assessment And Management

Abstract. Methodologies to estimate economic flood damages are increasingly important for flood risk assessment and management. In this work, we present a new synthetic flood damage model based on a component-by-component analysis of physical damage to buildings. The damage functions are designed using an expert-based approach with the support of existing scientific and technical literature, loss adjustment studies, and damage surveys carried out for past flood events in Italy. The model structure is designed to be transparent and flexible, and therefore it can be applied in different geographical contexts and adapted to the actual knowledge of hazard and vulnerability variables. The model has been tested in a recent flood event in northern Italy. Validation results provided good estimates of post-event damages, with similar or superior performances when compared with other damage models available in the literature. In addition, a local sensitivity analysis was performed in order to identify the hazard variables that have more influence on damage assessment results.

A conceptual model for the estimation of flood damage to power grids

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panagiotis Asaridis ◽  
Daniela Molinari ◽  
Francesco Ballio
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Model ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Flood Damage ◽  
Power Grids ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Damage Mechanisms ◽  
Damage Models ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

<p>Flood damage assessment is a crucial component of any decision-making process on flood risk management and mitigation; for this reason, reliable tools for flood damage estimation are required, for all the categories of exposed elements. Despite networks can suffer high losses in case of flood, and in comparison with other exposed items, flood damage modelling to infrastructures is still a challenging task. This is due, on the one hand, to the complexity of networks as well as of their interconnections; on the other hand, to the lack of knowledge and data to investigate damage mechanisms and to calibrate and validate damage models. Grounding on the investigation of the state of art, this contribution presents a conceptualization of flood damage to power grids. The ultimate objective of the conceptual model is to be an operative tool in support of more comprehensive and reliable flood damage assessments to power grids, highlighting: (i) the different components of the damage (i.e. direct, indirect, and systemic, meaning damage due to the interdependencies among power grids and residential, commercial, industrial and other infrastructure sectors), (ii) their interconnections, (iii) the hazard, exposure and vulnerability variables on which they depend, (iv) the temporal and spatial scales for their assessment. The development of the model highlighted, on the one hand, the importance of dividing damage assessment in two steps: the estimation of damage in quantitative/physical units and the estimation of the consequent economic losses. On the other hand, the variety of damage mechanisms and cascading effects shaping the final damage figure arises, asking for an interdisciplinary and multi-scale evaluation approach. The development of the conceptual model is the first step of a PhD research on the development of flood damage models for infrastructures. Next steps will validate the model in real case studies and evaluate how the different damage components could be investigated in the Italian context.</p>

Spatial and Institutional Analysis of the Voivodships Expenditure on Culture in the Years 2003 – 2015

e-Finanse ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-75
Author(s):  
Adam Mateusz Suchecki
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
The State ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Location Quotient ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
National Heritage

AbstractFollowing the completion of the process of decentralisation of public administration in Poland in 2003, a number of tasks implemented previously by the state authorities were transferred to the local level. One of the most significant changes to the financing and management methods of the local authorities was the transfer of tasks related to culture and national heritage to the set of tasks implemented by local governments. As a result of the decentralisation process, the local government units in Poland were given significant autonomy in determining the purposes of their budgetary expenditures on culture. At the same time, they were obliged to cover these expenses from their own revenues.This paper focuses on the analysis of expenditures on culture covered by the voivodship budgets, taking into consideration the structure of cultural institutions by their types, between 2003-2015. The location quotient (LQ) was applied to two selected years (2006 and 2015) to illustrate the diversity of expenditures on culture in individual voivodships.

The Implementation Approach of LCCF Checklist in Development Control: Challenges for policymakers

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
T B A
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Survey Methods ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Control Process ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Development Control

Global warming, climate change is now affecting the world. The effort of the leaders to achieving the sustainable development is from New Urban Agenda (NUA), Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and local level is local authorities.  SDG’s goal number 13 takes urgent action to combat climate change and its impact also SDG’s number 11 to sustainable cities and communities. The gap of this paper  Different cities face different challenges and issues. Local authorities will play a significant role in undertaking policy initiatives to combat carbon emissions of the city. Low Carbon Cities (LCC) is to reduce carbon emissions in all human activities in cities.  The objective of this paper is by applying the LCCF Checklist in planning permission for sustainable development. The methodology of this research is a mixed-method, namely quantitative and qualitative approach. The survey methods are by interview, questionnaire, and observation. Town planners are the subject matter expert in managing the planning permission submission for the development control of their areas. Descriptive statistical analysis will be used to show the willingness of the stakeholders, namely the developers and planning consultants in implementing of the LCCF. The contribution of this research will gauge readiness at the local authorities level. The findings of the LCCF checklist are identified as important in planning permission into the development control process. Surprisingly, that challenges and issues exist in multifaceted policy implementation the LCCF Checklist in a local authority. Finally based on Subang Jaya Municipal Councils, the existing approach in the application of the LCCF Checklist in the development control process will be useful for development control in a local authority towards sustainable development.  

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