Estimating Expected Annual Damage for Levee Retrofits
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 123, Issue 2
Abstract
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has instituted a new analysis methodology for estimating the expected annual damage (EAD) and resulting economic benefits accruing to proposed flood damage-reduction projects. Although the methodology is new, it still, in effect, uses expected probability to estimate the frequency of flooding and EAD. The National Research Council (NRC) in a review of USACE's study of the American River levees stated that the use of expected probability results in significantly biased estimates of EAD. An alternative damage model to that proposed by NRC is used to show that expected probability leads to an unbiased estimate of EAD. The damage model proposed requires that an unbiased estimate of damage results when applied to many projects. A simulation study demonstrates that EAD estimated with expected probability is unbiased, whereas the NRC's recommended estimator is biased.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
Arnell, N. (1989). “Expected annual damages and uncertainties in flood frequency estimation.”J. Water Resour. Plng. and Mgmt., 115(1), 94–107.
2.
Beard, L. R.(1978). “Impacts of hydrologic uncertainties on flood insurance.”J. Hydr. Div., ASCE, 104(11), 1473–1483.
3.
Beard, L. R.(1990). “Discussion of `Expected annual damages and uncertainties in flood frequency estimation.' ”J. Water Resour. Plng. and Mgmt., ASCE, 116(6), 847–850.
4.
Box, G. E. P., and Muller, M. E.(1958). “A note on the generation of random normal deviates.”Annu. Math. Statistics, 29, 610–611.
5.
Interagency Advisory Committee on Water Data (IACWD). (1982). “Guidelines for determining flood flow frequency.”Bull. No. 17B, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Geological Survey, Office of Water Data Coordination, Reston, Va.
6.
Mood, A. M., Graybill, A. F., and Boes, D. C. (1963). Introduction to the theory of statistics, 3rd Ed., McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, N.Y.
7.
National Research Council (NRC). (1995). Flood risk management and the American river basin, an evaluation. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
8.
Press, W. H., Flannery, B. P., Teukolsky, S. A., and Vetterling, W. T. (1989). Numerical recipes, the art of scientific computing. Cambridge University Press, New York, N.Y.
9.
Proschan, F. (1953). “Confidence and tolerance intervals for the normal distribution.”Am. Statistical Assn. J., September, 550–563.
10.
Thomas, W. O.(1985). “A uniform technique for flood frequency analysis.”J. Water Resour. Plng. and Mgmt., 111(3), 321–337.
11.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). (1956). American river levee general design, design memorandum, No. 1, American River Project, Sacramento, Calif.
12.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). (1990). “Guidance for conducting civil works planning studies.”Rep., ER 1105-2-100, Dept. of the Army, Washington, D.C.
13.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). (1996). “Risked based analysis for flood damage reduction studies.”Rep. EM 1110-2-1619, Dept. of the Army, Reston, Va.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Mar 1, 1997
Published in print: Mar 1997
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.