Probabilistic mapping of life loss due to dam-break flooding

Andrea Maranzoni (), Marco D’Oria and Carmine Rizzo
Additional contact information
Andrea Maranzoni: University of Parma
Marco D’Oria: University of Parma
Carmine Rizzo: University of Parma

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2024, vol. 120, issue 3, No 12, 2433-2460

Abstract: Abstract Assessment of flood damage caused by dam failures is typically performed deterministically on the basis of a single preselected scenario, neglecting uncertainties in dam-break parameters, exposure information, and vulnerability model. This paper proposes a probabilistic flood damage model for the estimation of life loss due to dam-break flooding with the aim of overcoming this limitation and performing a more comprehensive and informative evaluation of flood risk. The significant novelty lies in the fact that the model combines uncertainties associated with all three components of risk: hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Uncertainty in flood hazard is introduced by considering a set of dam-break scenarios, each characterized by different breach widths and reservoir levels. Each scenario is linked to a probability, which is assumed conditional on the dam-break event. Uncertainty in exposure is accounted for using dasymetric maps of the population at risk for two socio-economic states (representing business and non-business hours of a typical week), along with associated likelihood. Vulnerability to flooding is described through a well-established empirical hazard-loss function relating the fatality rate of the population at risk to the flood hazard, the flood severity understanding, and the warning time; a confidence band provides quantitative information about the associated uncertainty. The probabilistic damage model was applied to the case study of the hypothetical collapse of Mignano concrete gravity dam (northern Italy). The main outcome is represented by probabilistic flood damage maps, which show the spatial distribution of selected percentiles of a loss-of-life risk index coupled with the corresponding uncertainty bounds.

Keywords: Dam-break; Failure scenarios; Flood damage; Loss of life; Probabilistic maps; Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-023-06285-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:nathaz:v:120:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s11069-023-06285-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-023-06285-3

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().