This site contains economic flood damage assessment models developed by NRCS since the 1960s. The older DOS URB1 and ECON2 models are formulated specifically to look at urban and rural flood damages in PL83-566 sized watersheds. They take flow frequencies and cross sectional rating curves imported directly from the NRCS programs, WSP2 and TR20. These programs can also be used with the appropriate USACE programs like HEC2. The current version of ECON2 and URB1 was last revised 1991, and have been replaced with software from the USACE Hydrologic Engineering Center and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The Hydrologic Engineering Center's Flood Damage Analysis (HEC-FDA) computer program is designed to assist Corps of Engineers study team members in using risk-based analysis methods for flood-damage-reduction studies as required by the Corps (EM 1110-2-1419). The approach explicitly incorporates descriptions of uncertainty of key parameters and functions into project benefit and performance analyses. The software:
1) stores hydrologic and economic data necessary for an analysis,
2) provides tools to visualize data and results,
3) computes expected annual damage (EAD) and equivalent annual damages,
4) computes annual exceedance probability (AEP) and conditional non-exceedance probability as required for levee certification, and,
5) implements the risk analysis procedures described in EM 1110-2-1619.
The current software version 1.4 and documentation are available at http://www.hec.usace.army.mil/software/hec-fda/. CCE Certification of HEC FDA 1.4 is under review. In January, 2005, 20 NRCS economists received training on the HEC-FDA model at the USACE Hydrologic Engineering Center in Davis, CA.
The Hydrologic Engineering Center's Flood Impact Analysis (HEC-FIA) computer program version 2.2 is designed to analyze the consequences from any specific flood event. It calculates damages to structures and contents, losses to agriculture, and estimates the potential for life loss. HEC-FIA can also assist Corps Planning studies by looking at single events deterministically to support the OSE account with Life Loss and population at risk, or through helping to determine the impacts to agriculture for typical events for the study region. HEC-FIA can only be used to compute annual benefits across the full range of potential flood events, and in compliance with Corps policies regarding risk and uncertainty analysis, when used in conjunction with programs like HEC-WAT with the FRA compute option, DAM-RAE, or @Risk. HEC-FIA is typically used to perform dam and levee failure scenario analysis to support consequence estimates to determine the risk posed or prevented by Corps Projects. The current software version 2.2 and documentation are available at http://www.hec.usace.army.mil/software/hec-fia/. CCE Certification of HEC-FIA 2.2 is under review.
The National Water Management Center has a contract with USACE-HEC to provide assistance on the suite of HEC products. George Townsley is the NRCS contact for coordination with the HEC group for HEC-FDA and HEC-FIA.
The FEMA Hazus Multi Hazard (MH) version 2.2 contains models for estimating potential losses from earthquakes, floods and hurricanes. Hazus uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology (ArcGIS 10.2.2) to estimate physical, economic and social impacts of disasters. It graphically illustrates the limits of identified high-risk locations due to earthquake, hurricane and floods. The software estimates damages for 10-year to 500-year return period for commercial, residential, and agricultural asset classes. The current software version 2.2 and documentation are available at http://msc.fema.gov/portal/resources/hazus. CCE Certification of Hazus MH 2.2 is under review.
