Why does synergy matter in disaster recovery, and who needs to be involved?

A panel recently addressed this, during a meeting organized by the International Code Council for a conference of the Texas General Land Office in Austin, Texas. The discussion focused on (1) building-code development (including applied research to quantify the value of modern building codes), (2) federal financial support for building-code adoption and enforcement, and (3) the role of state and local governments in actually adopting and enforcing codes.

U.S. disaster losses from floods, wind, earthquakes, and fires average $100 billion per year.

In 2017, losses exceeded $300 billion—25% of the $1.3 trillion building value put in place that year.

Fortunately, there are affordable and highly cost-effective strategies that policymakers, building owners, risk managers, and others can deploy to reduce these impacts. Strategies include adopting and strengthening building codes, upgrading existing buildings, and improving utilities and transportation systems.

With natural disasters taking an increasing toll, innovative strategies to stem future losses are needed now more than ever. Incentivizing resilience should be the next priority. Even though there are long-term benefits from investing in hazard mitigation — a key element of resilience — individuals and businesses might not choose resiliency over frugality absent an incentive to do so. In this way, we should see hazard mitigation as a shared responsibility — with shared benefits.

In Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves, the National Institute of Building Sciences makes the case for disaster mitigation using benefit-cost analysis (BCA), a tool of engineering economics. BCA says that if an investment provides a benefit that exceeds its cost, it is desirable. But real people often confound engineers and economists by finding our calculations unpersuasive.