ResilienceIt pays to build to withstand disasters
For every dollar the government spends to make existing buildings more resistant to wildfires, earthquakes, floods and hurricanes, $6 is saved in property losses, business interruption and health problems, according to a new study. The study also found that for every $1 spent to exceed building codes and make structures more hazard-resistant in the future, $4 would be saved. In all, over the next 75 years, these measures could prevent 600 deaths, 1 million injuries and 4,000 cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, the report concludes.
For every dollar the government spends to make existing buildings more resistant to wildfires, earthquakes, floods and hurricanes, $6 is saved in property losses, business interruption and health problems, according to a new study led by CU Boulder Professor Keith Porter.
The study also found that for every $1 spent to exceed building codes and make structures more hazard-resistant in the future, $4 would be saved. In all, over the next 75 years, these measures could prevent 600 deaths, 1 million injuries and 4,000 cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, the report concludes.
“Considering that natural-hazard losses continue to climb, exceeding $300 billion in 2017 alone, mitigation decisions are more pressing now than ever,” said principal investigator Porter, a research professor in the department of civil, environmental and architectural engineering. “This study shows it pays to build new buildings better and to fix existing ones, and everybody wins when we do so.”
Calculating the human cost
Colorado says that the multi-year study, Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves, was commissioned by the congressionally chartered nonprofit National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) and carried out by Porter’s consulting business SPA Risk LLC. CU Boulder students participated in the research and Lori Peek, director of CU Boulder’s Natural Hazards Research Center, served on the oversight committee.
A 2005 version of the study found that for every $1 the Federal Emergency Management Agency spent to fortify existing buildings, taxpayers saved $4. That study has been instrumental in convincing governments around the world to invest in natural hazards mitigation. But the new expanded study suggests it underestimated how cost effective it can be.
For the revision, Porter and a national team of scientists calculated how much the federal government spent on mitigation over the past 23 years.
Then they used probabilistic risk assessment to calculate how much expense that mitigation avoided or will avoid. In addition to looking at earthquakes, hurricane winds, and river flooding–as the 2005 study did–they looked at fire at the wildland-urban interface (a growing problem in Colorado and California) and hurricane storm surge, which caused the bulk of damage from Hurricane Harvey in Texas.
