Ensuring Economic Benefits of Mitigation Projects for Improving the Image of Construction Industry

Over the last several decades, the United States has experienced a great number of natural disasters. To minimize the impact of the natural hazard events, the U.S. government spent a tremendous amount of money through federal assistant programs. To be eligible for the programs, a mitigation project must be cost effective (more benefits compared to project costs). However, the state and local communities suffering from the natural disasters generally have difficulty in collecting reliable evidence for their damages which can be converted later into benefits when a mitigation project is implemented. Therefore, this paper shows the process of conducting a benefit cost analysis with limited data. Besides, it also provides how to apply the limited data to the analysis through a case study. Consequently, this paper help state and local communities get funding from the federal government, which in turns will improve the image of construction industry by preventing people from natural disasters.