Optimization-Based Regional Hurricane Mitigation Planning
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 19, Issue 1
Abstract
This paper introduces a constrained linear optimization model to help guide expenditure of government funds for regional hurricane risk management and to provide insight into some of the complexities involved in designing and prioritizing regional mitigation policies and programs. Specifically, it aims to help answer questions about (1) how much should be spent on mitigation (specifically, retrofitting or acquiring/demolishing buildings); (2) what the return on that investment will be; and (3) how mitigation funds should be spent (i.e., which buildings should be mitigated, how, and when). A full-scale case study for residential woodframe buildings in eastern North Carolina is presented to show how a model application can consider the important features of hurricane loss and mitigation while remaining computationally tractable for real, regional applications and to illustrate the type of results the model provides and how they can be interpreted. The case study considers damage from both high winds and storm surge flooding. The case study includes a detailed assessment of the risk by using a carefully selected set of hurricane scenarios to represent the regional hazard and a component-based damage model and considers physically realistic mitigation strategies.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the National Science Foundation (CMMI-0555738) for financial support of this research. They also thank Brian Blanton for his help developing the wind and surge hazard data.
References
Altay, G., et al. (2002). “Benefit-cost analysis for earthquake mitigation: Evaluating measures for apartment in Turkey.” Proc., the 2nd Annual IIASA-DPRI Meeting, International Institute for Advanced Systems Analysis, Vienna, Austria.
Apivatanagul, P., Davidson, R., Blanton, B., and Nozick, L. (2011). “Long-term regional hurricane hazard analysis for wind and storm surge.” Coastal Eng., 58(6), 499–509.
Augusti, G., Borri, A., and Ciampoli, M. (1994). “Optimal allocation of resources in reduction of the seismic risk of highway networks.” Eng. Struct., 16(7), 485–497.
Bernknopf, R., Dintz, L., Rabinovici, S., and Evans, A. (2001). “A portfolio approach to evaluating natural hazard mitigation policies: An application to lateral-spread ground failure in coastal California.” Int. Geol. Rev., 43(5), 424–440.
California Seismic Safety Commission (CSSC). (2006). Status of the unreinforced masonry building law: 2006 progress report to the legislature, Sacramento, CA.
Dantzig, G. (1957). “Discrete-variable extremum problems.” Oper. Res., 5(2), 266–277.
Davidson, R., Nozick, L., Dodo, A., and Xu, N. (2005). “Equity in regional earthquake mitigation investment.” Proc.,. Symp. on Risk Modeling and Loss Reduction Strategies for Natural and Technological Hazards, Part of the 9th Int. Conf. on Structural Safety and Reliability—ICOSSAR’05, Millpress, Rotterdam, June 19–23.
Davidson, R., and Rivera, M. (2003). “Projecting building inventory changes and the effect on hurricane risk.” J. Urban Plann. Dev., 129(4), 211–230.
Dodo, A., Davidson, R., Xu, N., and Nozick, L. (2007). “Application of regional earthquake mitigation optimization.” Comput. Oper. Res., 34(8), 2478–2494.
Dodo, A., Xu, N., Davidson, R., and Nozick, L. (2005). “Optimizing regional earthquake mitigation investment strategies.” Earthquake Spectra, 21(2), 305–327.
Englehardt, J., and Peng, C. (1996). “A Bayesian benefit-risk model applied to the South Florida Building Code.” Risk Anal., 16(1), 81–91.
Ermoliev, Y., Ermolieva, T., MacDonald, G., Norkin, V., and Amendola, A. (2000). “A system approach to management of catastrophic risks.” Eur. J. Oper. Res., 122(2), 452–460.
Ermolieva, T., Fischer, G., and Obersteiner, M. (2003). “Integrated modeling of spatial and temporal heterogeneities and decisions induced by catastrophic events.”, International Institute for Advanced Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.
Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH). (2010). “Floods: electrical system—Elevating.” 〈http://www.flash.org/peril_inside.php?id=54〉 (Nov. 3, 2010).
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). (2003). HAZUS-MH multi-hazard loss estimation methodology: Hurricane model technical manual, Washington, DC.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). (2009a). Homeowner’s guide to retrofitting, 2nd Ed., FEMA, Washington, DC.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). (2009b). “Pre-disaster mitigation grant program.” 〈http://www.fema.gov/government/grant/pdm/index.shtm〉 (May 3, 2010).
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). (2010). Hazard mitigation assistance unified guidance, FEMA, Washington, DC.
Florida Public Hurricane Loss Model (FPHLM). (2005). Engineering team final rep., Vol. I, II, and III, Florida International University, 〈http://www.cis.fiu.edu/hurricaneloss〉 (Nov.16, 2010).
Kappos, A., and Dimitrakopoulos, E. (2008). “Feasibility of pre-earthquake strengthening of buildings based on cost-benefit and life-cycle cost analysis, with aid of fragility curves.” Nat. Hazards, 45(1), 33–54.
Kuwata, Y., and Takada, S. (2003). “Seismic risk assessment and upgrade strategy of hospital lifeline performance.” Proc., 6th U.S. Conf. on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering, ASCE, Reston, VA, 82–91.
Legg, M. (2011). “Resource allocation for regional hurricane mitigation planning.” Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY.
Mostafa, E., and Grigoriu, M. (2002). “A methodology for optimizing retrofitting techniques.” Proc., 7th U.S. National Conf. on Earthquake Engineering, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Oakland, CA.
National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). (2004). Housing facts, figures and trends, NAHB Advocacy/Public Affairs and NAHB Economics Group, Washington, DC.
Nuti, C., and Vanzi, I. (1998). “Assessment of post-earthquake availability of hospital system and upgrading strategies.” Earthquake Eng. Struct. Dyn., 27(12),1403–1423.
Opricovic, S., and Tzeng, G. H. (2002). “Multicriteria planning of post-earthquake sustainable reconstruction.” Comput. Aided Civ. Infrastruct. Eng., 17(3), 211–220.
Pinelli, J., et al. (2004). “Hurricane damage prediction model for residential structures.” J. Struct. Eng., 130(11), 1685–1691.
Rose, A., et al. (2007). “Benefit-cost analysis of FEMA hazard mitigation grants.” Nat. Hazards Rev., 8(4), 97–111.
R. S. Means Co. (2009). Building construction cost data, Kingston, MA.
Shah, H., Bendimerad, F., and Stojanovski, P. (1992). “Resource allocation in seismic risk mitigation.” Proc., 10th World Conf. on Earthquake Engineering, Vol. 4, Balkema, Rotterdam, 6007–6011.
State Climate Office of North Carolina (SCONC). (2010). “Hurricanes.” North Carolina State University, 〈http://www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu/climate/hurricane.php〉 (Nov. 16, 2010).
Taggart, M., and van de Lindt, J. (2009). “Performance-based design of residential wood-frame buildings for flood based on manageable loss.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 23(2), 56–64.
van de Lindt, J., and Taggart, M. (2009). “Fragility analysis methodology for performance-based analysis of wood-frame buildings for flood.” Nat. Hazards Rev., 10(3), 113–123.
Vaziri, P., Davidson, R., Nozick, L., and Hosseini, M. (2010). “Resource allocation for regional earthquake risk mitigation: A case study of Tehran, Iran.” Nat. Hazards, 53(3), 527–546.
Xu, N., Davidson, R., Nozick, L., and Dodo, A. (2007). “The risk-return tradeoff in optimizing regional earthquake mitigation investment.” Struct. Infrastruct. Eng., 3(2), 133–146.
Westerink, J., et al. (2008). “A basin-to-channel-scale unstructured grid hurricane storm surge model as implemented for southern Louisiana.” Mon. Wea. Rev., 136(3), 833–864.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 19 • Issue 1 • March 2013
Pages: 1 - 11
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 31, 2011
Accepted: Apr 4, 2012
Published online: Apr 11, 2012
Published in print: Mar 1, 2013
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.