"Repeated Hazards and Behavioral Adaptation: Moving Beyond Static Risk Models"

ABSTRACT

Many communities are subject to repeated hazard events, sometimes within short time frames, sometimes with multiple years between events. Standard hazard risk analysis approaches assume communities do not evolve in response to repeated hazards. In these models land use does not change, building stock and infrastructure does not change, and individuals do not behave differently in subsequent events based on the hazards they have experienced. Behavioral resources suggests that many of these assumptions are questionable, yet few quantitative studies exist of how behavioral adaptation to past events influences the evolution of community vulnerability. This talk provides an overview of behavioral research on how repeated events influences individual behavior. It then presents a series of two quantitative studies of how repeated hazard events influence the evolution of community vulnerability. The first focuses repeated tsunamis in Japan and how they influence land use and vulnerability to future “black swan” events. The second focuses on repeated hurricanes in the Mid-Atlantic and how they can influence both individual and collective behavior in ways that changes community vulnerability to future events.

BIO

Seth Guikema is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering with a joint appointment in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. He is also a Professor II in the Department of Safety, Economy, and Planning at the University of Stavanger (Norway) and a Data Science Research Fellow with One Concern, Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up. He serves as the Area Editor for Mathematical Modeling in the journal Risk Analysis. His research focuses on developing, testing, and implementing risk analysis methods for complex socio-technical and socio-environmental problems, especially communities and infrastructure facing climate-related hazards.