Jökull - 01.01.2001, Qupperneq 88

Tómas Jóhannesson and Þorsteinn Arnalds
Table 5. Cost of relocation and avalanche defence structures 1995–2000. – Kostnaður við uppkaup, flutning
byggðar og byggingu varnarvirkja 1995–2000.
CostLocation
(billion IKR) (million USD)
Súðavík (relocation) 0.81 10.1
Hnífsdalur (purchasing of buildings) 0.23 2.8
Flateyri (dams

, completed in 1998) 0.44 5.5
Siglufjörður (dams


, completed in 1999) 0.33 4.0
Neskaupstaður (dams and supporting structures

) 0.55 6.8
Various costs 0.13 1.6
Total 2.5 31

Sigurðsson et al. (1998).


VS and NGI (1997).

Tómasson et al. (1998).
Siglufjörður to evaluate the use of supporting struc-
tures for Icelandic conditions (Jóhannesson and Mar-
greth, 1999) and some other miscellaneous costs are
listed as various costs in the last line of Table 5.
The table shows that the cost of defence structures
is now about 60% and the cost of relocation and pur-
chasing of buildings in hazard areas is about 40% of
the total cost.
The new defence structures at Flateyri and in
Siglufjörður have already been hit by avalanches on
four separate occasions in the three winters since
the deflecting dams were completed (Jóhannesson et
al., 1999; Jóhannesson, in press). Figures 6 and 7
show outlines of the avalanches that hit the deflecting
dams at Flateyri in 1999 and 2000 and Siglufjörður
in 1999 and 2001. The 1999 avalanche from Skolla-
hvilft above Flateyri was substantially smaller than
the catastrophic avalanche in 1995 (Figure 6). It
would thus probably not have caused damage in the
absence of the dams, because buildings in this area of
the village were devastated by the avalanche in 1995.
It is possible, on the other hand, that the avalanche
in 2000 from Innra-Bæjargil (Figure 6) would have
reached the current settlement and destroyed several
domestic houses. It is also possible that the avalanche
in 1999 from the gully Ytra–Strengsgil in Siglufjörður
(Figure 7) would have reached the current settlement
if it had not been directed away from the village by
the deflecting dam which was then under construction
below the gully.
OTHER LOSSES AND COSTS
An additional loss component, which is difficult if
not impossible to determine economically, is the loss
of lives in accidents. Although it is not particularly
meaningful to attach a certain sum of money to each
lost life, one may try to approach this question from
the viewpoint that the society spends money on life-
saving operations in hospitals, by building more se-
cure traffic infrastructure etc. There is general will-
ingness in the society to spend a certain but not a very
well defined amount of money on saving a life, and
this amount is definitely not unlimited. If a life is lost
in an accident, which could have been prevented with
a much lower cost than is often spent on saving the
lives of patients in hospitals or on other lifesaving op-
erations in the society, then this may be considered a
failed opportunity to prevent an accident. This view
will be adopted here and it is assumed that the society
is willing to spend on the order of 100 million IKR
(1.2 million USD) to save the life of one person that
otherwise might be lost in an accident.
The deaths due to avalanche and landslide acci-
dents in Iceland over the last 26 years thus correspond
to an economic loss of 69  100 million IKR (86 million
USD) in the above sense that the society is assumed to
have been willing to spend this amount of money on
measures for preventing the accidents in addition to
the cost of the more direct economic damage which
was estimated above.
88 JÖKULL No. 50