Characterization of damages in buildings after floods in Vega Baja County (Spain) in 2019. The case study of Almoradí municipality

Abstract

September 2019 saw the most catastrophic floods on the southeast coast of Spain since 1879, leaving fatalities, thousands of people evacuated, and nearly €500 million in compensation. The aim of this work is to characterize the flood exposure, resistance, hazard, and damage in the buildings affected by that event to create an empirical data set as a tool for improving and validating damage models and their transferability to the Valencian Region. For this purpose, we developed and applied a case study methodology in Almoradí, one of the most severely damaged municipalities in Vega Baja County, after the 2019 events. The proposed methodology starts with on-site surveys to collect data, identifying three archetypes based on exposure and resistance features. Then, absolute and relative damage recorded were correlated with the flood depth. Finally, data were mapped using a GIS system. Results show a significant correlation between the recorded flood depth and both relative and absolute damage, which rises to diverse as varying building exposure and resistance characteristics. The methodology presented to characterize direct tangible damage from empirical data may be transferred to any region whose buildings have been affected by floods. However, for damage estimation purposes, the results may be used only in regions with comparable expected flood depths, building exposure and resistance features.

Keywords

• Building flood exposure
• Building flood resistance
• Building flood vulnerability
• Empirical data set
• Flood damage
• Flood damage model