Optimization-Based Regional Hurricane Mitigation Planning

Abstract

This paper introduces a constrained linear optimization model to help guide expenditure of government funds for regional hurricane risk management and to provide insight into some of the complexities involved in designing and prioritizing regional mitigation policies and programs. Specifically, it aims to help answer questions about (1) how much should be spent on mitigation (specifically, retrofitting or acquiring/demolishing buildings); (2) what the return on that investment will be; and (3) how mitigation funds should be spent (i.e., which buildings should be mitigated, how, and when). A full-scale case study for residential woodframe buildings in eastern North Carolina is presented to show how a model application can consider the important features of hurricane loss and mitigation while remaining computationally tractable for real, regional applications and to illustrate the type of results the model provides and how they can be interpreted. The case study considers damage from both high winds and storm surge flooding. The case study includes a detailed assessment of the risk by using a carefully selected set of hurricane scenarios to represent the regional hazard and a component-based damage model and considers physically realistic mitigation strategies.