ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0002-8894-078X

Graduation Semester and Year

2018

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Civil Engineering

Department

Civil Engineering

First Advisor

Mohsen Shahandashti

Abstract

The post-disaster survival of cities and communities depend on their capabilities to rapidly reconstruct damages. Temporary increase in construction costs following natural disasters, also known as “demand surge,” impedes the rapid post-disaster reconstruction process. The existing methods for quantifying the post-disaster construction cost escalations do not consider seasonal patterns and inflation of costs under normal condition. Therefore, it is not clear whether the quantified construction cost increases are due to a disaster or merely associated with seasonal patterns and inflation. The objective of this study is to (1) create an approach to statistically quantify the post-disaster construction material cost fluctuations considering regional seasonal patterns and inflation of construction material costs in normal condition (no disaster), and (2) apply the approach to identify the most vulnerable construction materials following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana. We created an approach based on cumulative sum (CUSUM) control charts and Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (Seasonal ARIMA) models to measure post-disaster construction material cost fluctuations. This approach is applied to quantify construction material cost fluctuations following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana. Our results indicate three different patterns in the post-disaster cost movements: (1) Statistically significant increase in the cost of materials, such as I-beams and channel beams, (2) Statistically significant decrease in the cost of materials, such as pine lumber and (3) Not statistically significant changes in the cost of materials, such as reinforced concrete pipes. These findings are expected to help property insurers, capital planners and construction engineers to estimate post-disaster cost fluctuations more accurately. They also help identify the most vulnerable construction materials to disasters.

Keywords

Post-disaster cost change, Quantification, Natural disasters, Material cost increase, Post-disaster reconstruction, Reconstruction materials, Hurricanes, Katrina, Seasonal ARIMA, CUSUM control charts, Autocorrelation assessment

Disciplines

Civil and Environmental Engineering | Civil Engineering | Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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