1st Edition
Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management A Manual for Economic Appraisal
A new ‘Multi-Coloured Manual'
This book is a successor to and replacement for the highly respected manual and handbook on the benefits of flood and coastal risk management, produced by the Flood Hazard Research Centre at Middlesex University, UK, with support from Defra and the Environment Agency. It builds upon a previous book known as the "multi-coloured manual" (2005), which itself was a synthesis of the blue (1977), red (1987) and yellow manuals (1992). As such it expands and updates this work, to provide a manual of assessment techniques of flood risk management benefits, indirect benefits, and coastal erosion risk management benefits.
It has three key aims. First it provides methods and data which can be used for the practical assessment of schemes and policies. Secondly it describes new research to update the data and improve techniques. Thirdly it explains the limitations and complications of Benefit-Cost Analysis, to guide decision-making on investment in river and coastal risk management schemes.
1. Introduction: the purpose and contents of this manual
1.1 The rationale, purpose and structure of this volume: the new ‘Multi-Coloured Manual’
Analysis (MCA)
1.2 Guide to contents and the use of the manual
1.3 Flood and coastal erosion risk management: strategies and policies
1.4 The aim and assumptions of benefit-cost analysis
1.5 Predicting the future
1.6 Generalised and detailed benefit assessments
1.7 The phasing and timing of each part of an assessment
1.8 Estimating scheme costs
1.9 Updating
1.10 What is new in this new ‘Multi-Coloured Manual’
2. Using appraisals to make better choices
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Why do we have to choose?
2.3 Making the ‘right’ decision: stakeholder involvement as a ‘given’
2.4 Applying reason to choice
2.5 Choices and values
2.6 Changes in risks and values over time
2.7 Measuring values
2.8 Making the decision
2.9 Some lessons from experience
3. Flood risk management benefits: theory and practice
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Types of flood damage, flood loss and land use enhancement
3.3 Calculating annual average damages
3.4 Data inputs for flood risk management appraisals
3.5 ‘Filtering’ as an experimental aid to targeted data quality enhancement
3.6 Loss-probability curve issues
3.7 Decision rules and options
3.8 Lessons from experience
4. Flood damage to residential properties and related social impacts
4.1 Summary of Information
4.2 Underlying assumptions
4.3 The rationale for the compilation of the standard depth/damage data
4.4 Flood damage to ‘park homes’
4.5 Vehicle damages in floods
4.6 The damage-reducing effect of property-level protection (PLP) and flood warnings
4.7 The benefits of mitigating evacuation during flooding
4.8 The ‘intangible’ effects of flooding
4.9 Recommended approaches to residential benefit assessment
4.10 Assessment and conclusions: remaining issues and lessons from experience
5. Flood damage to non-residential properties
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The rationale for developing a new methodology and database for NRPs
5.3 The evolution of our MCM NRP classification system
5.4 The six main components of flood damage
5.5 Susceptibility of non-residential properties to flood damage
5.6 Direct flood damage data
5.7 Indirect flood losses and damages
5.8 Unusual and complex circumstances
5.9 The damage reducing effect of property-level protection (PLP) and flood warnings
5.10 How to use the non-residential property depth/damage database
5.11 Updating
5.12 Other issues and lessons
6. Other flood losses: utility services, schools, hospitals, transportation networks and emergency costs
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Prioritisation of losses for inclusion in project appraisal
6.3 Lessons from previous floods – percentage uplifts for assessing potential losses
6.4 Potential flood losses caused by disruption to public utilities
6.5 Potential flood losses caused by disruption to transportation
6.6 Potential losses to the provision of other public services
6.7 Other losses in respect of ‘critical’ infrastructure
6.8 Emergency services and related costs, and Environment Agency costs
6.9 Lessons from experience
7. Coastal erosion risk management: potential losses and benefits
7.1 Summary of information
7.2 Problem definition
7.3 Assessing the extent of the erosion problem
7.4 Valuing delays in losses, and the extension of the lives of property and land
7.5 Infrastructure benefit assessment procedures
7.6 Valuing non built-up land
7.7 Common misconceptions and lessons from experience
8. Recreational gains and losses
8.1 Summary of information and developments in the last decade or so
8.2 Developing and refining estimates of recreational benefits
8.3 The recommended approach and techniques: an overview
8.4 The initial appraisal stage: recommended methods
8.5 The detailed appraisal study stage: recommended methods
8.6 Results from the surveys
8.7 Corton case study: an example of a CV survey
8.8 Key lessons from experience
9. Appraisal of flood risk management for agriculture
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Flooding, drainage and impacts on agriculture
9.3 Factors influencing flood damage costs on agricultural land in the UK
9.4 Estimating the Financial and Economic Value of Flooding on Agriculture
9.5 Estimating the Agricultural Damage cost of a single flood event
9.6 Defra Guidance on the Appraisal of Agricultural Flood Risk Management Investments
9.7 Environmental protection and flood risk management
9.8 The Valuation of Ecosystems services and flood risk management
9.9 Data needs, sources and collection methods
9.10 Agricultural flood risk management appraisal at the scheme level
9.11 Worked example
9.12 Lessons from experience
9.13 Summary
10. Environmental gains and losses in flood and coastal erosion risk management
10.1 Introduction
10.2 The environment, the economy and economics
10.3 Negotiating choices
10.4 The policy context of the environment in flood and coastal risk management
10.5 Defra’s recommended step-by-step approach
10.6 A proposed experimental methodology
10.7 Enhancing and mitigation costs
10.8 Contexts which we believe can require the economic evaluation of the environment
10.9 The scoring and weighting approach
10.10 Lessons from experience
References
Index
Biography
All the authors work at or in conjunction with the Flood Hazard Research Centre (FHRC) at Middlesex University, London, UK. The FHRC has a distinguished 40-year history of interdisciplinary research in this field. It has been commended for this by two Chief UK Government Scientific Advisors, Sir David King and Sir John Beddington, and by the award of a prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize. This book is an output of new research projects and activities carried out under the joint sponsorship of the UK’s Environment Agency and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs following the severe flooding in the UK in 2007.
