MEDiate Project: Infrastructure and Social Vulnerability to Floods in Essex

What are the indirect impacts of flooding in Essex? Join ARU experts as they explore the effect on infrastructure and social vulnerability. 

Disasters cause significant losses to people, assets and businesses. The direct losses are easy to estimate after a disaster and predict beforehand, if the hazard intensity is known. However, the loss of an asset can indirectly impact access to other primary services during and immediately after the disaster. On the other hand, these losses cause a significant financial and well-being burden on people with adverse impacts on marginalised groups. These indirect impacts are challenging to estimate.

In this free talk, Dr Nadeeshani Wanigarathna and Dr Mariantonietta Morga from ARU will propose an analysis of the indirect impact caused by a flood in an Essex locality. In particular, the impact of the serviceability loss of the road network on the access to primary services will be presented.

We'll also explore the socio-economic characteristics of the same Essex locality and analyse how they influence the exposure to flood risk.

Speakers

Dr Nadeeshani Wanigarathna
Nadeeshani, who joined ARU in 2014, has a background in quantity surveying. She is an experienced researcher in construction economics, with a particular focus on disaster management financing. She has worked on several international projects on natural hazards and climate change risk management.

Dr Mariantonietta Morga
Mariantonietta is an environmental and land engineer. Her decade-long past research has covered topics ranging from crack identification in structural elements to the assessment of physical damage to infrastructure components caused by earthquakes. Since joining ARU in 2017, she has focused on infrastructure risk and resilience to natural hazards. Since starting her career, she has contributed to several international projects on natural hazards.

This event is part of the Chelmsford Science Festival.