Coastal Flood Damage Estimator: An Alternative to FEMA’s HAZUS Platform

AbstractFloods are the most devastating natural hazards in the United States, and these events lead to significant economic consequences. Estimation of damages and losses at different parts of the floodplain can be used to identify the vulnerable areas susceptible to flood. Floodplain maps combined with damage assessment could identify high-flood-risk areas and present a platform to develop guidelines and zoning resolutions for proper land use, building new infrastructures, and placing and retracting residential areas. In this study, a risk-based methodology is proposed to quantitatively assess damages. For this purpose, a geographic information system (GIS)–based approach is used as an alternative to more complex software packages. The system is called a flood-damage estimator (FDE) and utilizes empirical synthetic depth-damage functions, land-use data, digital elevation model (DEM), raster maps (for featuring the characteristics of the properties at flood risk areas), and floodplain extent for the regio...