TY  - JOUR
A1  - Pfurtscheller, Clemens
A1  - Thieken, Annegret
T1  - The price of safety costs for mitigating and coping with Alpine hazards
JF  - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
N2  - Due to limited public budgets and the need to economize, the analysis of costs of hazard mitigation and emergency management of natural hazards becomes increasingly important for public natural hazard and risk management. In recent years there has been a growing body of literature on the estimation of losses which supported to help to determine benefits of measures in terms of prevented losses. On the contrary, the costs of mitigation are hardly addressed. This paper thus aims to shed some light on expenses for mitigation and emergency services. For this, we analysed the annual costs of mitigation efforts in four regions/countries of the Alpine Arc: Bavaria (Germany), Tyrol (Austria), South Tyrol (Italy) and Switzerland. On the basis of PPP values (purchasing power parities), annual expenses on public safety ranged from EUR 44 per capita in the Free State of Bavaria to EUR 216 in the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol. To analyse the (variable) costs for emergency services in case of an event, we used detailed data from the 2005 floods in the Federal State of Tyrol (Austria) as well as aggregated data from the 2002 floods in Germany. The analysis revealed that multi-hazards, the occurrence and intermixture of different natural hazard processes, contribute to increasing emergency costs. Based on these findings, research gaps and recommendations for costing Alpine natural hazards are discussed.
Y1  - 2013
U6  - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-13-2619-2013
SN  - 1561-8633
VL  - 13
IS  - 10
SP  - 2619
EP  - 2637
PB  - Copernicus
CY  - Göttingen
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bouwer, Laurens M.
A1  - Papyrakis, Elissaios
A1  - Poussin, Jennifer
A1  - Pfurtscheller, Clemens
A1  - Thieken, Annegret
T1  - The costing of measures for natural hazard mitigation in Europe
JF  - Natural hazards review
N2  - The literature on the costing of mitigation measures for reducing impacts of natural hazards is rather fragmented. This paper provides a concise overview of the current state of knowledge in Europe on the costing of mitigation measures for the reduction of natural hazard risks (droughts, floods, storms and induced coastal hazards as well as alpine hazards) and identifies knowledge gaps and related research recommendations. Furthermore, it provides a taxonomy of related mitigation options, classifying them into nine categories: (1) management plans, land-use planning, and climate adaptation; (2) hazard modification; (3) infrastructure; (4) mitigation measures (stricto sensu); (5) communication in advance of events; (6) monitoring and early warning systems; (7) emergency response and evacuation; (8) financial incentives; and (9) risk transfer (including insurance). It is found that the costing of mitigation measures in European and in other countries has almost exclusively focused on estimating direct costs. A cost assessment framework that addresses a range of costs, possibly informed by multiple stakeholders, would provide more accurate estimates and could provide better guidance to decision makers. (C) 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
KW  - Natural hazards
KW  - Mitigation
KW  - Costs
KW  - Adaptation
KW  - Risk reduction
KW  - Floods
KW  - Droughts
KW  - Coastal hazards
KW  - Alpine hazards
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000133
SN  - 1527-6988
SN  - 1527-6996
VL  - 15
IS  - 4
PB  - American Society of Civil Engineers
CY  - Reston
ER  -