Input-Output Economic Evaluation of System of Levees

Abstract

Recent large-scale flooding in northern California and the scale of the 1993 flood of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers have demonstrated that floodplain management should be conducted for regions, rather than only for individual floodplains. Economic activities connect each floodplain to other floodplains and to areas not affected by flooding. A method is presented to estimate the economic effects of flooding over a region of interacting floodplains and other lands by incorporating a Leontief economic input-output model with a probabilistic description of the potential overtopping in a system of levees. Expected economic damages may be greater if flooding reduces the availability of floodplain products that are used as inputs to other sectors of the economy. The model is used to evaluate the flood risk for an example of a distributed system of levees.