I presented this paper at the Engineering Technology Forum and Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF) in 2011. I also published this paper in the Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture in 2013 (Reference below). Queensland was hit with significant flooding in 2011. An approach was sorely needed to evaluate potential projects to improve flood immunity and access to many parts of Queensland. I started my research into evaluating flood immunity projects prior to the 2011 floods and was in a great position to present and publish my work. The work presented in this paper has been cited by other papers and has influenced and contributed to the work of others in the area (Franklin et al 2014 and Engineers Australia 2013). Unfortunately, the application of methodologies presented has not been adopted to any great extent or been including in project evaluation guidelines to this point, also no alternative methods have been proposed to evaluate flood immunity projects. It is important that a methodology for evaluating the benefits of improving flood immunity is established as flood events are frequent and very costly particularly in Queensland Australia. The methodology in this paper is still valid and I believe a very good starting point for further research and application to actual projects.
Paper Abstract
The regular occurrence and the high costs of flooding to both road agencies and communities is a strong impetus to investigate the methodologies applied to evaluating flood immunity road projects. Very little literature exists on methods of evaluating the benefits of improving flood immunity through better road infrastructure. This paper attempts to address some of the numerous issues hindering the accurate evaluation of flood immunity road projects. The methodologies presented in this paper are designed to evaluate benefits that are not normally included or not fully considered in evaluations. The application of these methodologies is demonstrated in an example of a typical rural network subjected to regular flooding.
The full paper can be found at the following links.
Davies, W. (2013), Advanced Methods of Evaluating Benefits from Improved Flood Immunity in Queensland, Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture, 7, (9), 973-991, available at: http://www.davidpublishing.com/show.html?13744
(Also presented at the Australasian Transport Research Forum 2011, available at: http://www.atrf.info/papers/2011/2011_Davies.pdf)
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