Abstract
After the flood disaster of 1953, the Netherlands adopted a rational approach to flood risk management with the use of protection standards determined by means of cost-benefit analysis. Due to scientific and political developments that have recently taken place, an update of the Dutch protection standards is being undertaken. One of the major priorities considered, is the need to address three issues, namely: (1) expressing the protection standards as failure probabilities of the flood defences, i.e. probabilities of breaching, instead of exceedance frequencies of water levels that is currently the case, (2) taking into account a spatial variability of those failure probabilities, and (3) considering various flooding scenarios. These aspects have been comprehensively addressed within a national flood risk analysis project, and partly considered in a numerical cost-benefit analysis approach, developed for the determination of new protection standards in the Netherlands. This paper presents an analytical economic optimization approach that makes an explicit link with all results of the national flood risk analysis project. In particular, an approach is outlined for the approximation of economically optimal design values of the failure probabilities along dyke-ring segments, which are treated as a series system of flood defences. The approach can assist in the determination of new protection standards in the Netherlands, but also in the design of flood prevention systems elsewhere.
Highlights
1.1 Context of the Dutch flood risk management policyModern societies are exposed to various types of hazards, which are responsible for thousands of human losses and severe economic damage every year
P0=failure probability of the dyke-ring at t=0, α = weighted average of the scale parameters of the exponential distributions that the relative increase of water level follows, η = weighted average of annual increases of water level reduced by the effect of subsidence of the subsoil [cm/year]
The selected planning period and the formal climate change projections can be used in the economic optimization, which will determine the amounts to be invested in every segment of the flood prevention system
Summary
Modern societies are exposed to various types of hazards, which are responsible for thousands of human losses and severe economic damage every year. The value of human losses was determined based on estimated stock values of human capital (see, e.g. Petty 1690; Folloni and Vittadini 2010), while for future practices the method of valuation of statistical life and injuries (VOSL) is contemplated (Vrijling and Van Gelder 1997; Bockarjova et al 2012) Other intangibles such as ecological and cultural consequences were not taken into account at the time, and they can have a considerable effect on the results of the analysis, they are not explicitly tackled in this paper. After the financial failure of Betuweroutea railway project in the 1990s that cost more than twice its initial budget, the use of cost-benefit analysis became mandatory for all public investments in the Netherlands (Huizinga 2012) This effectively means that the rationale adopted in the 1950s is not likely to be substantially changed in the coming decades
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