Are we preventing flood damage eco-efficiently? An integrated method applied to post-disaster emergency actions

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Environmental Economics
• Urban Hydrology

Background:

• Flood damage causes significant economic and environmental losses.
• Flood prevention infrastructure requires substantial initial investment.
• Urbanized areas with ephemeral streams are vulnerable to torrential events.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the eco-efficiency of post-disaster emergency flood prevention actions.
• To determine the feasibility of these actions using an integrated hydrologic, environmental, and economic approach.
• To quantify the net impact and payback period by incorporating avoided flood damage.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) to evaluate eco-efficiency.
• Integrated avoided flood damage data with initial investment costs.
• Focused on ephemeral streams in the Maresme region, Catalonia, Spain.

Main Results:

• Emergency actions effectively reduced damage compared to rainfall and water flow data.
• The eco-efficiency of actions was 1.2 kg CO2eq per euro invested.
• Integrating avoided damage yielded negative net impacts (e.g., -5.2E+05€, -2.9E+04 kgCO2eq per event), indicating societal benefits.

Conclusions:

• Flood prevention interventions provide significant environmental and economic benefits.
• Economic investment in these actions was recovered within two years.
• Design improvements can reduce the environmental footprint, with payback in 25 years.