Abstract
The impact of a tsunami can vary greatly across short distances because of differences in topography, building structures, the concentration of economic activities in the inundation zone, and the economic links beyond the inundation zone. In this study, we take these factors into account in an analysis of a potential tsunami on the west coast of the United States. An integrated engineering-economic model is proposed that uses detailed information on spatial heterogeneities in flood depth and economic activity by connecting engineering estimates of tax-lot physical damages with economic activity at the sector level. The performance of this new approach, in terms of estimated total losses and the distribution of effects across sectors, is compared with two prominent alternatives: engineering-only and economic-only. This study reveals special concerns of overestimation and inaccurate vulnerability assessment by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hazus program, which uses an input-output–based framework and lacks spatially explicit estimates of physical damages and economic losses.
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