CONHAZ

Costs of Natural Hazards

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Cost assessments of damages of natural hazards supply crucial information to policy development in the fields of natural hazard management and adaptation planning to climate change. There exists significant diversity in methodological approaches and terminology in cost assessments of different natural hazards and in different impacted sectors. ConHaz provides insight into cost assessment methods, which is needed for an integrated planning and overall budgeting, and to prioritise policies. To strengthen the role of cost assessments in natural hazard management and adaptation planning, existing approaches and best practices as well as knowledge gaps are identified. ConHaz has three key objectives. The first objective is to compile state-of-the-art methods and terminology as used in European case studies, taking a comprehensive perspective on the costs of natural that includes droughts, floods, storms, and alpine hazards. ConHaz also considers various impacted economic sectors such as housing, industry and transport, and non-economic sectors such as health and nature. It will consider single and multi-hazards, leading to direct, indirect and intangible costs. ConHaz moreover looks at costs and benefits of risk-prevention and emergency response policies. The second objective of ConHaz is to evaluate the compiled methods. The analysis addresses theoretical issues, such as the principal assumptions that underlie economic valuation of damage types, as well as practical issues, such as the qualifications needed for data collection and quality assurance. ConHaz also looks at the reliability of the end result by considering the accuracy of cost predictions and best-practice-methods of validation. A central issue of the evaluation is to compare available methods with end-user needs. The third objective of ConHaz is to synthesize the results and give recommendations according to current best practice as well as to resulting research needs.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

A concise estimate of losses incurred from a natural disaster and implicated costs can help ensure the resilience of communities and the livelihoods of citizens.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Natural disasters such as floods, tidal waves, avalanches and droughts have a large impact on communities and can compromise a healthy economy. By being able to calculate the economic costs of disasters more accurately, stakeholders such as governments, policymakers and insurers can help address a natural hazard more effectively.

The aim of the EU-funded project 'Costs of natural hazards' (Conhaz) was to help find better ways to calculate these costs and help economies stand on their own feet again. The project sought to assemble data on cost evaluation methods in order to refine natural hazard management and planning. It aimed to analyse the different methods and produce recommendations on dealing with disasters, in addition to defining further research needed.

As a first step, Conhaz defined direct costs and also indirect costs, such as those due to business interruption, as well as non-market costs and risk mitigation costs. It also gathered information from previously completed local and regional projects on the topic and formed a stakeholder database to disseminate the newly formed recommendations. The resulting database features contact details of stakeholders, such as representatives of civil society, relevant EU representatives, policymakers and decision makers.

Another important part of the project concerned the establishment of networks to boost knowledge exchange and identifying EU initiatives on hazards, risk prevention and adaptation. In addition, the project team established a website which communicated the project's aims and served as a communication platform to exchange information on the topic.

All the results and findings were communicated through different workshops, as well as through a final conference featuring experts from the European Commission, academia, insurance companies, governments and consulting firms. These events represented a starting point to simulating the costs of natural hazards, creating plans to address disasters and helping society recover much more quickly.