Consequences of floods for civil infrastructure

The inundation of a large area of any country can lead to a long term disruption of people?s daily lives and to a substantial setback of that country?s economy. The effects of a flood on the community and the economy are difficult to oversee and have rarely been studied in detail in the past. In this report an attempt will be made to identify quantitatively both the short term and long term effects of a flood occurring in the region of Zuid-Holland. The starting point is a TNO report about the protection of critical infrastructure in the Netherlands. The report contains a quick-scans of the critical products and services in the Netherlands. In this study only the products and services that are dependent on any type of physical infrastructure (including lifelines and excluding buildings and housing) have been researched. The vulnerability of the components of these products and services are identified in terms of their likelihood of incurring permanent damage or being temporarily out of service during the flood. The dependency of products and services on the products of services which are likely to fail immediately when a flood occurs have directly been taken from the TNO report. It can be concluded that the failure of these products and services directly leads to the interruption of all telecommunication services and interruption of the drinking water supply.