Estimating Costs and Benefits for Nonstructural Flood Control Measures

摘要

This report evaluates three nonstructural flood control measures: flood-proofing, evacuation-relocation and land use regulations. Floodproofing is an adjustment to a structure or its contents, or both, such that either water is kept from the structure or the damaging effects of water entry are eliminated or reduced. Evacuation-relocation involves the physical and permanent evacuation of activities and people from the floodplain to sites where the flood hazard is lower. Land use regulation attempts to direct future land use in such a way that it is consistent with the flood hazard. Estimates of the cost of floodproofing would be made by examining different designs for each structure and choosing the least expensive to add into the total cost. Two distinctive cost categories can be considered for evacuation-relocation: (1) physical costs of carrying out the program, and (2) loss of income occasioned by the relocation of the activity away from the location chosen in the market. The measurement of the costs of land use regulation requires projection of future development which will occur in the floodplain and determining what costs are incurred by excluding this projected development from the floodplain. These three measures create inundation reduction benefits by lowering the damage susceptibility of individual structures or of the aggregate of structures on the floodplain.