Integrated risk assessment of water related disasters

This chapter presents a conceptual framework (KULTURisk Framework or KR-FWK) and its implementation methods (SERRA or Socio-Economic Regional Risk Assessment) for integrated (physical and economical) risk assessment and evaluation of risk prevention benefits in the field of water-related processes. The KR-FWK (i.e. from the name of the European project within which it originated) and the SERRA approach were developed upon preexisting proposals, with three main innovation aims: (1) to include the social capacities of reducing vulnerability and risk, (2) to provide an operational solution to assess risks, impacts, and the benefits of plausible risk reduction measures, by including a monetary estimation of costs and benefits, and (3) to go beyond the estimation of direct tangible costs. Vulnerability is considered as a result of the interactions between physical (territorial) characteristics and the susceptibility and the capacities of the socioeconomic system to adapt and cope with a specific hazard, expressed as a nondimensional index ranging between 0 and 1. Exposure, is instead assessed in monetary terms, and thus the multiplicative combination of two indices ranging between 0 and 1 (hazard and vulnerability) with a third one (exposure) expressed in monetary terms produces a monetary quantification of risk, which can be used for supporting decisions via cost-benefit analysis. Regarding the third aim of going beyond the estimation of direct tangible damages, operational solutions are proposed to evaluate four possible socioeconomic costs possibly deriving from the adverse consequences of flood, namely direct/indirect and tangible/intangible costs. The proposed methodology aims to be comprehensive with respect to the set of receptors usually considered in the literature of regional risk assessment. The sets of receptors considered are people, economic activities, categorized as (1) buildings; (2) infrastructures; and (3) agriculture and cultural heritage and ecosystems. We show how to apply SERRA and the KR-FWK in the case of Dhaka/Lower Brahmaputra/Bangladesh, by reusing elaborations already done or in progress and by developing some minimal new work; e.g. to demonstrate indirect/intangible costs.