Computer-based Model for Flood Evacuation Emergency Planning

Slobodan Simonovic () and Sajjad Ahmad ()

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2005, vol. 34, issue 1, 25-51

Abstract: A computerized simulation model for capturing human behavior during flood emergency evacuation is developed using a system dynamics approach. It simulates the acceptance of evacuation orders by the residents of the area under threat; number of families in the process of evacuation; and time required for all evacuees to reach safety. The model is conceptualized around the flooding conditions (physical and management) and the main set of social and mental factors that determine human behavior before and during the flood evacuation. The number of families under the flood threat, population in the process of evacuation, inundation of refuge routes, flood conditions (precipitation, river elevation, etc.), and different flood warnings and evacuation orders related variables are among the large set of variables included in the model. They are linked to the concern that leads to the danger recognition, which triggers evacuation decisions that determine the number of people being evacuated. The main purpose of the model is to assess the effectiveness of different flood emergency management procedures. Each procedure consists of the choice of flood warning method, warning consistency, timing of evacuation order, coherence of the community, upstream flooding conditions, and set of weights assigned to different warning distribution methods. Model use and effectiveness are tested through the evaluation of the effectiveness of different flood evacuation emergency options in the Red River Basin, Canada. Copyright Springer 2005

Keywords: flooding; evacuation; behavior; simulation; system dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11069-004-0785-x (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:spr:nathaz:v:34:y:2005:i:1:p:25-51

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

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-004-0785-x

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 ().