Intangible Flood Damage Quantification

Abstract

Flooding is a natural disaster that may cause tremendous tangibleand intangible damage to the national economy. The tangible damage assessment, i.e. the monetary value of all direct and indirect physical damages, has already been studied, whileintangible damages have not yet been taken into account. Thisarticle, therefore, is the first systematic attempt to assess bothtangible and intangible damages. The new proposed ‘Anxiety-Productivity and Income Interrelationgship Approach (API)’ has been developed to quantify the intangible damage in monetary terms. The Bangkok area has been selected as the research area because several severe flood events have occurredthere over the last two decades. The 1983 Bangkok flood caused 6600 million baht in damage, according to estimates by the National Statistical Office (NSO). This article examines the totalflood damage (including the intangible damage) at different flood magnitudes. Case studies ‘with’ and ‘without’ flood mitigation projects are studied and compared. Furthermore, thisarticle also discusses the improvements over the conventional approach offered by the new API methodology.