The household benefits assessment of the flood reduction plan in Flood-prone Area: A case study in Sinwen, Chiayi, Taiwan

This study is a method to evaluate the household benefits from flood reduction plan by the loss estimations with and without measures under various precipitation return period (accumulated probability). 'The Flood Reduction Plan in the Flood-prone Area' is ratified by the Executive Yuan, Taiwan, on 2006, which aims to ease the impact caused by flood hazard. Since this flood reduction plan is one of the biggest government projects, it is important to evaluate the benefit of the plan. In Taiwan, the benefits of a construction are traditionally conducted from the engineering point of view which estimates the direct and indirect benefits. However, it is difficult to distinguish actual loss or benefits caused by the floods. In addition, the official loss evaluations are mainly based on the rough estimation from fishery, farming, and industries, but households are generally more vulnerable to flood in most flood-prone areas. This study found a household flood loss model which is based on a household survey data and the definition of flood loss is consistent with welfare economics. The household flood loss includes human resources loss and man-made property loss, such as contracture loss, furniture loss, vehicle loss etc. Finally, we chose 'the Flood Reduction Plan in Hsin-Wen area, Chia-Yi County, Taiwan,' as a case for the real assessment. The household annual expected benefit from the plan is 16,678,393 NTD.