Title
Multi-dimensional damage assessment (MDDA): A case study of El Niño flood disasters in Peru
Date Issued
01 January 2021
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Publisher(s)
Elsevier B.V.
Abstract
Assessing disaster impacts is the pathway to attain informed decision making to mitigate damages. Currently, these impacts are generally analyzed excluding the environmental consequences of disasters. Thus, this study proposes a novel quantitative method, named multi-dimensional damage assessment (MDDA), that integrates the disaster-related environmental impacts with economic and social losses. For this, Life Cycle Assessment was used to measure environmental impacts at the endpoint level for the human health area of protection. The unit of assessment used to merge the three damage dimensions was the disability-adjusted life year equivalent (DALYeq). The damages exerted by floods in Peru linked to El Niño in recent decades were selected as the main case study. Furthermore, other natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes) were included in the assessment for the sake of comparability. The results show that El Niño floods in Peru in 1982–83 and 1997–98 presented higher damage per capita, approximately 2.8 times higher, than the event in 2017. Additionally, the assessment showed that economic damages are the most relevant in El Niño floods, whereas social damages are those prevalent for earthquakes. The results demonstrate that MDDA is an effective measurement for the purpose of damage comparison and, therefore, to implement mitigation strategies. The proposed methodology will allow the development of disaster risk mitigation strategies that will cover all damage dimensions and enable the adoption of improved public policies. Finally, MDDA can be applied to compute any complex array of damages that humans may suffer or infringe as a consequence of their interaction with the environment.
Volume
33
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Biorremediación, Biotecnologías de diagnóstico en la gestión ambiental
Ciencias ambientales
Estudios urbanos
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85110469998
Source
Climate Risk Management
ISSN of the container
22120963
Sponsor(s)
This study is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI). The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) supports this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag. The authors thank Ignacio Sánchez and Mateo Ledesma, from UN Environment, as well as personnel from the Peruvian Ministry of Environment (MINAM) for their support. The authors thank the support provided by the Postgraduate School at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, in particular the Master Degree in Civil Engineering, as well as the financial support provide by the Department of Engineering.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus