Development and application of flood footprint analytical model in assessing economic impact to flooding events

• Main Author: Mendoza Tinoco, David
• Published: University of East Anglia 2017
• Subjects: 338.91
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.753875

This thesis presents a methodological approach, the flood footprint framework, to capture the total economic costs of flooding events, as some of the most damaging climatic disasters. Economic costs are constituted by physical destruction, and all cascaded disruptions caused by the direct destruction. The method uses the fundamentals of Input-Output modelling, which is founded on the conceptualisation of the circular flow of the economy, representing the complex transactions between producers and intermediate and final consumers, for each sector, in an algebraic array. The solution of the equations’ system allows quantification of direct and indirect impacts along the value chain from changes in final demand. The flood footprint model further extends to capture changes in production due to the distortions of the economic equilibrium caused by flooding events, and to simulate the economy’s recovery. Sources of flooding disruption within the model arise from capital constraints, disruptions to labour force, and behavioural changes in final consumption. The method was applied to four case studies. The outcomes support the lesson that losses from a disaster are exacerbated and disseminated to other economies throughout economic mechanisms, and those knock-on effects (or indirect damages) constitute a substantial proportion of total economic losses, where non-directly flooded sectors might be also severely affected. The main implications for adaptation strategies are the review of the dynamics of direct and indirect damages and to unveil vulnerable hotspots along the value chain. This would allow an efficient allocation of investment resources and minimisation of socioeconomic damages during post-flood economic recovery. The key contribution of this thesis is a comprehensive methodology for assessing the total economic impacts of flooding events, considering elements that had not been taken into account together before, by incorporating multidisciplinary techniques for evaluation and projection of future scenarios, and bringing the analysis to a multiregional (global) scale.