Prioritising of safety measures in land use planning: on how to merge a risk-based approach with a cost-benefit analysis approach

Eirik Bjorheim Abrahamsen, Jon Tømmerås Selvik and Hallvard Berg

International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management, 2016, vol. 6, issue 3, 182-196

Abstract: The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) is a governmental body, which, i.e., seeks to improve society's ability to deal with floods and landslides. The NVE is required by the national government and the Norwegian parliament to prioritise flood defences and landslide damage in those situations considered of highest risk. At the same time, the NVE should also prioritise safety measures with reference to cost-effectiveness. Within the NVE, prioritising safety measures with reference to risk and to cost-effectiveness is stated as challenging, and in some situations contradictory. To improve this situation, and to contribute to the ability to achieve more informed decisions upon prioritising of safety measures against floods and landslides, we have in this paper developed a semi-quantitative approach which incorporates assessments of both risk and cost-effectiveness. A more consistent and transparent decision-making process is then achieved. An example is included to illustrate our ideas.

Keywords: safety measures; land use planning; cost-benefit analysis; cost-effectiveness; floods; flooding; landslides; uncertainty; Norway; flood defences; risk assessment. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=79007 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijbcrm:v:6:y:2016:i:3:p:182-196

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().