Valuation of debris flow mitigation measures in tourist towns: a case study on Hongchun gully in southwest China

Tourist towns have dual functions of tourism and local community living. However, a vast number of these towns are located in the mountain areas, which are constantly threatened by natural hazards such as debris flows. If a huge investment is spent on the hazard control engineering, the value on the engineering project should be estimated properly. However, such valuations at tourist towns are usually very challenging and controversial. In this study, an attempt has been made to evaluate the economic value of the debris flow control engineering in tourist towns by integrating both welfare and disaster economics. The total value of debris flow prevention and control engineering in tourist towns (VDFE) includes investment cost (IC), disaster mitigation benefit (DMB), and loss of brand value (LBV). Here DMB is assessed by the cost-benefit method. The LBV is estimated by incorporating brand equity and cost-benefit methods. The engineering for debris flow control in the Hongchun Gully of southwest China was built to protect Yingxiu tourist town and was assessed as an example. The IC for the engineering is 180 million RMB, however, the VDFE reaches as high as 3,401 million RMB, of which the LBV is 169 million RMB, and the input-output ratio is 1:18. Thus, the LBV cannot be neglected in case of VDFE estimation process. The more developed the tourism in one town or city is, the greater the LBV and the higher the VDFE are.