Risk to life due to flooding in Post-Katrina New Orleans

Risk to life due to flooding in Post-Katrina New Orleans

Miller, A.
Jonkman, S.N.
Van Ledden, M.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Hydraulic Engineering

2012-11-20

After the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans due to hurricane Katrina in the year 2005, the city’s hurricane protection system has been improved to provide protection against storms with at least a 100 year return period. The aim of this article is to investigate the risk to life in the post-Katrina situation for the New Orleans metro bowl. In a risk-based approach the probabilities and consequences of various flood scenarios have been analyzed to estimate the risk to life. A two-dimensional hydrodynamic model has been used to simulate flood characteristics. Results indicate that – depending on the flood scenario – the estimated loss of life in case of flooding ranges from about 100 to nearly 500. The highest life loss value is found for breaching of the river levees. Probability and consequence estimates are combined to evaluate the individual risk and societal risk for New Orleans. When compared to risks of other large scale engineering systems (e.g. other flood prone areas, dams and the nuclear sector) and acceptable risk criteria found in literature, the evaluated risk exceeds acceptable risk levels. Thus despite major improvements to the flood protection system, the flood risk of post-Katrina New Orleans is expected to be significant. Effects of risk reduction strategies on the risk level are investigated to assist in providing bases for decision making. Results indicate the necessity of further discussion regarding the management and reduction of the city’s risk to flooding.

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FLOODrisk 2012: The 2nd European Conference on FLOODrisk Management "Science, Policy and Practice: Closing the Gap", Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 20-22 November 2012; Authors version

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2012 The Authors