Assessment of Flood Losses with Household Responses: Agent-Based Simulation in an Urban Catchment Area
Authored by Juergen Scheffran, Liang Emlyn Yang, Diana Suesser, Richard Dawson, Yongqin David Chen
Date Published: 2018
DOI: 10.1007/s10666-018-9597-3
Sponsors:
German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG)
Platforms:
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Model Documentation:
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Abstract
Densely populated coastal urban areas are often exposed to multiple
hazards, in particular floods and storms. Flood defenses and other
engineering measures contribute to the mitigation of flood hazards, but
a holistic approach to flood risk management should consider other
interventions from the human side, including warning information,
adaptive behavior, people/property evacuation, and the multilateral
relief in local communities. There are few simulation approaches to
consider these factors, and these typically focus on collective human
actions. This paper presents an agent-based model that simulates flood
response preferences and actions taken within individual households to
reduce flood losses. The model implements a human response framework in
which agents assess different flood scenarios according to warning
information and decide whether and how much they invest in response
measures to reduce potential inundation damages. A case study has been
carried out in the Ng Tung River basin, an urbanized watershed in
northern Hong Kong. Adopting a digital elevation model (DEM) as the
modeling environment and a building map of household locations in the
case area, the model considers the characteristics of households and the
flood response behavior of their occupants. We found that property
value, warning information, and storm conditions all influence household
losses, with downstream and high density areas being particularly
vulnerable. Results further indicate (i) that a flood warning system,
which provides timely, accurate, and broad coverage rainstorm warning,
can reduce flood losses by 30-40\%; and (ii) to reduce losses, it is
more effective and cheaper to invest early in response measures than
late actions. This dynamic agent-based modeling approach is an
innovative attempt to quantify and model the role of human responses in
flood loss assessments. The model is demonstrated being useful for
analyzing household scale flood losses and responses and it has the
potential to contribute to flood emergency planning resource allocation
in pluvial flood incidents.
Tags
Agent-based modeling
Uncertainty
Management
systems
Model
Strategies
Coupled human
Mitigation
Urban area
Flood risk and damage
Flood loss assessment
Adaptation and response
Pearl river delta
Hong kong
Damage assessment
Risk perception
Warnings