Does the Pareto Distribution of Hurricane Damage Inherit its Fat Tail from a Zipf Distribution of Assets at Hazard? Thesis

(2014). Does the Pareto Distribution of Hurricane Damage Inherit its Fat Tail from a Zipf Distribution of Assets at Hazard? . 10.25148/etd.FI14071154

thesis or dissertation chair

authors

  • Hernandez, Javiera I

abstract

  • Tropical Cyclones are a continuing threat to life and property. Willoughby (2012) found that a Pareto (power-law) cumulative distribution fitted to the most damaging 10% of US hurricane seasons fit their impacts well. Here, we find that damage follows a Pareto distribution because the assets at hazard follow a Zipf distribution, which can be thought of as a Pareto distribution with exponent 1. The Z-CAT model is an idealized hurricane catastrophe model that represents a coastline where populated places with Zipf- distributed assets are randomly scattered and damaged by virtual hurricanes with sizes and intensities generated through a Monte-Carlo process. Results produce realistic Pareto exponents. The ability of the Z-CAT model to simulate different climate scenarios allowed testing of sensitivities to Maximum Potential Intensity, landfall rates and building structure vulnerability. The Z-CAT model results demonstrate that a statistical significant difference in damage is found when only changes in the parameters create a doubling of damage.

publication date

  • July 2, 2014

keywords

  • Catastrophe Model
  • Damage
  • Hazard
  • Hurricane
  • Inventory
  • Loss
  • Normalized Damage
  • Pareto
  • Tropical Cyclone
  • Vulnerability
  • Zipf

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)