Morphological wave attenuation of the nature-based flood defense: A case study from Chongming Dongtan Shoal, China

The risk of coastal storm flooding is deteriorating under global warming, especially for the heavily urbanized deltaic cities, like Shanghai. The Nature-Based Flood Defense (NBFD), as an eco-friendly design alternative for hard infrastructure against coastal flooding, is gaining attention. Nevertheless, the vulnerability of saltmarsh due to...

A techno-economic analysis of membrane-based advanced treatment processes for the reuse of municipal wastewater

The objective of this paper is to compare, under Dutch market conditions, the energy consumption and net costs of membrane-based advanced treatment processes for three water reuse types (i.e. potable, industrial, agricultural reuse). The water source is municipal waste-water treatment plant effluent. Results indicate that the application of...

Participatory value evaluation for the evaluation of flood protection schemes

Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) is a new survey method which elicits citizens' preferences over the allocation of public budgets as well as their private income. In a PVE, citizens are asked to choose the best portfolio of projects given a governmental and a private budget constraint. First, this paper aligns PVE with the traditional Kaldor...

A task-based analysis of the economic viability of low-manned and unmanned cargo ship concepts

While successful trials for autonomously navigating ships have been conducted, commercially available unmanned cargo ships are currently unavailable. However, there are many solutions available that will allow for low-manned ship concepts long before fully unmanned ships are possible. There are many drivers for low-manned and unmanned...

Appraisal of freight projects and policies

Freight transport systems are facing ever-growing demand and increasingly stringent requirements. Governments are pressured to develop new policies and fund new projects that drive forward the freight transport systems. We provide an overview of typical evaluation approaches used for freight transport policies and projects, from the public...

Impact of a new metro line in amsterdam on ridership, travel times, reliability and societal costs and benefits

The north-south metro line in Amsterdam became operational in summer 2018, accompanied by changes to the existing bus, metro, and tram network in the city. In this paper we undertake an ex-post analysis of the transportation impacts of the network change. Using two sets of smart card transactions, of 5-6 weeks each, and corresponding...

Hard or soft flood adaptation? Advantages of a hybrid strategy for Shanghai

Flood risk is expected to increase in coastal cities, particularly in Asian megacities such as Shanghai. This paper presents an integrated modeling framework to simulate changes in the flood risk in Shanghai and provide a cost-benefit analysis of multiple adaptation strategies used to reduce risk. The results show that the potential flood...

The SPPD-WRF framework: A novel and holistic methodology for strategical planning and process design of water resource factories

This paper guides decision making in more sustainable urban water management practices that feed into a circular economy by presenting a novel framework for conceptually designing and strategically planning wastewater treatment processes from a resource recovery perspective. Municipal wastewater cannot any longer be perceived as waste stream...

Flood Protection Using Multiple Lines of Dikes: A Case Study of the Twin Dike Eemshaven-Delfzijl Project

The Twin Dike project is an innovative concept to achieve the required flood safety while being able to preserve valuable areas. A lower, second dike is constructed behind the original existing dike. The original dike is only being strengthened to a minimal extent. The general idea behind this project is to more efficiently use the area near the...

The value of travel time, noise pollution, recreation and biodiversity: A social choice valuation perspective

Environmental effects of transport projects have a weak position in Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) which might be rooted in the valuation approach adopted in the dominant style of CBA. This conventional valuation approach has been criticized for not valuing positive and negative impacts of transport projects in relation to each other and for not...

Impact of including interdependencies between multiple riverine flood defences on the economically optimal flood safety levels

In risk analysis of riverine flood defence systems, sections of flood defences are often considered separately, herewith ignoring their interdependence, e.g. due to the hydraulic response following dike breaches in the system. In previous studies it has been found that such interdependence can have a significant influence on flood risk estimates...

Estimation of network level benefits of reliability improvements in intermodal freight transport

An important problem in the assessment of reliability benefits of transport projects is that link level improvements must be translated to network level, so that they can be economically valued based on users’ trips from origins to destinations. For intermodal transport, shipments follow a chain with more than one mode. Generally, this requires...

Value of travel time as a function of comfort

The value of travel time can theoretically be defined as the opportunity cost of travel minus the direct utility from spending the time during the trip. This paper searches for empirical evidence to support this formulation. We show that travellers who indicate that a shorter trip duration is useful or a longer trip duration is very...

The consumer-citizen duality: Ten reasons why citizens prefer safety and drivers desire speed

Cost-benefit analyses for transportation projects usually value impacts on safety and travel time through experiments in which consumers of mobility (‘drivers’) choose between routes which differ in safety and travel time. This approach has been criticized for failing to consider that private choices may not fully reflect citizens’...

Modeling dynamics and adaptation at operational and structural scales for the ex-ante economic evaluation of large dams in an African context

Dams can produce electricity and ensure water security, but at the same time they radically alter the hydrological regime of rivers with significant consequences for the economic and environmental welfare of the region in which they are located. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is currently the most frequently used framework for the economic...

A critical assessment of discounting policies for transport cost-benefit analysis in five European practices

Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) has a long tradition as a broadly-used instrument for assessing transport infrastructure investments. In a CBA, the discount rate often determines whether a project passes the benefit-cost test. One concern is that literature on the subject offers widely differing recommendations regarding which discount rate...

Relating cost-benefit analysis results with transport project decisions in the Netherlands

This paper relates the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) results of transportation policy proposals in the Netherlands with the decision to implement or abandon the proposal. The aim of this study is to explore the relation between the CBA results and decision-making. Multinomial logit regression models and Latent Class Analysis are used in this...