Innovation in assessing property-level flood risk adaptation measures: insights from a coupled hydraulic-economic model at the building scale

Nous nous questionnons sur l’efficacité des mesures d’adaptation individuelles en termes du montant de dommages évités et de garanties de sécurité.

Within the framework of the DEUFI project, we want to address the effectiveness of Property-level flood risk adaptation (PLFRA) measures in reducing monetary flood damage and ensuring people’s security.

The ex-ante evaluation of the effectiveness of PLFRA measures proposed in vulnerability assessments remains underdeveloped. Consequently, professionals carrying out vulnerability assessments lack the tools to validate their recommendations of PLFRA measures and costumers should invest in them without estimations of avoided material damage or safety improvements. Furthermore, from an institutional point of view, the evaluation of the effectiveness of PLFRA measures could call into question the validity of programmes designed based on broad principles but applied to specific areas.

This paper proposes an innovative, process-based, 3D, building-level model that combines hydraulic and economic modules, as well as a danger index. This tool, called floodam.building can successfully evaluate the effectiveness of PLFRA measures in real buildings and, when installation costs are available, enable cost-benefit and efficiency analyses. Additionally, the tool can estimate the dangerousness of a given path to a shelter as well as the time available to reach it.

This paper is accesible and downloadable form here : David Nortes Martínez, Frédéric Grelot, Pascal Finaud-Guyot, Pauline Bremond, Marie Arragon. Innovation in assessing property-level flood risk adaptation measures: insights from a coupled hydraulic-economic model at the building scale. G-EAU Working Paper/Rapport de Recherche No.19. 2025, pp.21. hal-05334776