Reference no: EM132855223

CEE 4554 Natural Disasters - Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

ASSIGNMENT - Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Optimum Level of Safety for the New Orleans Hurricane Protection System

Question 1. Produce a properly labeled chart (Chart 1) with chart title: Cost-Benefit Analysis of New Orleans Hurricane Protection System for North-1 Dike Ring. Required Investment Costs based on Jonkman 2008 . Include in the chart three series (curves) as follows:
i. Required investment (using Jonkman's numbers, given in Table 3)
ii. Annual cost of residual risk
iii. Total net cost

Question 2. From the Total Net Cost curve, determine the optimum (minimum cost/benefit) level of protection provided by the hurricane protection system (HPS), expressed as a frequency of corresponding storm events (1/R per year). Should protection be provided at the 1/100 per year level? Or at the 1/200 per year level?
a) Determine optimum level of safety, expressed as protection against a 1/R frequency event
b) Explain how you determined this from your chart
c) Explain and justify each of the three series or curves, in separate paragraphs. Each of these paragraphs should have a heading similar to Explanation of Required Investment Curve
d) Determine Lake Ponchartrain design surge level that should be used as the basis for design of the HPS.

Question 3. The investment costs given by Jonkman seem unreasonably low for the higher safety levels. A better approach might be to base the estimated investment costs on (height of storm surge) squared. To put the costs at a comparable level to Jonkman's for the 100-year event,
a) Calculate investment costs according to ¼ H2 x 108 $, where H is storm surge height.
b) Produce Table 4, which is an update of Table 3.

Table 4. Investment costs* for various levels of protection, North 1 dike ring.
Return Period R years	100	500	1,000	5,000	10,000	100,000	1,000,000
Design surge level, Lake Ponchartrain
Required investment* to defend against storm surge (US$ Billion)

*Investment Costs calculated according to ¼ H2 x 108 , where H is storm surge height

Question 4. Produce a properly labeled chart (Chart 2) with chart title: Cost-Benefit Analysis of New Orleans Hurricane Protection System for North-1 Dike Ring. Required Investment Costs Proportional to Storm Surge Height Squared. Include in the chart three series (curves) as follows:
i. Required investment (with costs according to ¼ H2 x 108 )
ii. Annual cost of residual risk (same as before)
iii. Total net cost.
a) Determine the optimal level of safety based on the new Total Net Cost curve, expressed as protection against a 1/R frequency event.
b) Determine Lake Ponchartrain design surge level that should be used as the basis for design of the HPS.

Attachment:- Natural Disasters.rar