Flood damage data analysis: towards an improvement of data quality and usability

Abstract

The European project IDEA (Improving Damage assessments to Enhance cost-benefit Analyses) is a response to the limited reliability of data currently used to support cost-benefit analyses for natural hazards mitigation; in particular, an improvement of both damage data quality and procedures to collect and manage them is pursued by the project. A comprehensive understanding of (i) how disaster data are presently collected and stored, (ii) main reasons for data collection, (iii) possible uses of collected data, and (iv) stakeholders involved in data collection and management is the first step to improve the present quality, reliability and usability of data. To this aim, several case studies were analysed in the project referring to different hazards, countries and spatial scale. The analysis brought, for each case study, to (i) the characterisation of data owners, data collectors, and data users, and (ii) a critical analysis of damage data in terms of their comprehensiveness in reproducing observed impacts, data sources, formats and level of detail. This paper discusses results obtained for the floods that hit the Umbria Region (Central Italy) in 2012 and 2013, as emblematic of the different case studies analysed in the project. First, the methodological approach followed in the analysis is disclosed. Then, results are presented. Finally, their implication for the project objective are discussed.