This work is a java implementation of a study of the viability of a population submitted to floods. The population derives some benefit from living in a certain environment. However, in this environment, floods can occur and cause damage. An individual protection measure can be adopted by those who wish and have the means to do so. The protection measure reduces the damage in case of a flood. However, the effectiveness of this measure deteriorates over time. Individual motivation to adopt this measure is boosted by the occurrence of a flood. Moreover, the public authorities can encourage the population to adopt this measure by carrying out information campaigns, but this comes at a cost. People’s decisions are modelled based on the Protection Motivation Theory (Rogers1975, Rogers 1997, Maddux1983) arguing that the motivation to protect themselves depends on their perception of risk, their capacity to cope with risk and their socio-demographic characteristics.
While the control designing proper informations campaigns to remain viable every time is computed in the work presented in https://www.comses.net/codebases/e5c17b1f-0121-4461-9ae2-919b6fe27cc4/releases/1.0.0/, the aim of the present work is to produce maps of probable viability in case the serie of upcoming floods is unknown as well as much of the parameters for the population dynamics. These maps are bi-dimensional, based on the value of known parameters: the current average wealth of the population and their actual or possible future annual revenues.

This model implements a combined Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) and Protection Motivation Theory (PAM) model for human decision making regarding hazard mitigations. The model is developed and integrated into the MASON modeling framework. The ABM implements a hind-cast of Hurricane Sandy’s damage to Sea Bright, NJ and homeowner post-flood reconstruction decisions. It was validated against FEMA damage assessments and post-storm surveys (O’Neil 2017).

RHEA aims to provide a methodological platform to simulate the aggregated impact of households’ residential location choice and dynamic risk perceptions in response to flooding on urban land markets. It integrates adaptive behaviour into the spatial landscape using behavioural theories and empirical data sources. The platform can be used to assess: how changes in households’ preferences or risk perceptions capitalize in property values, how price dynamics in the housing market affect spatial demographics in hazard-prone urban areas, how structural non-marginal shifts in land markets emerge from the bottom up, and how economic land use systems react to climate change. RHEA allows direct modelling of interactions of many heterogeneous agents in a land market over a heterogeneous spatial landscape. As other ABMs of markets it helps to understand how aggregated patterns and economic indices result from many individual interactions of economic agents.
The model could be used by scientists to explore the impact of climate change and increased flood risk on urban resilience, and the effect of various behavioural assumptions on the choices that people make in response to flood risk. It can be used by policy-makers to explore the aggregated impact of climate adaptation policies aimed at minimizing flood damages and the social costs of flood risk.