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Ph.D. student Tyler Blake Davis presented a report last month to the Congressional Research Service in Washington, D.C., on using benefit-cost analysis to reform principles and standards of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in constructing levees for flood control on the upper Mississippi River.

The report was co-presented with his colleague Julie Vano, a Ph.D. student in the UW Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and was produced under the faculty supervision of Richard O. Zerbe Jr. and Joseph H. Cook with assistance from eight Master of Public Administration students—Jonahthan Armah, Hande Ayan, Christina Bernard, Aaron Blumenthal, Lea Fortmann, Lori Reimann Garretson, Christopher Godwin, and William Dean Runolfson.

Background Information
Managing water resources for flood damage protection, irrigation, reliable navigation on riverways, and other services is an important function of federal water resource agencies. To determine whether programs are implemented, federal agencies are required to systematically analyze the associated costs and benefits when evaluating the merits of a proposed project. The current Principals and Guidelines assisting federal agencies when conducting cost benefit analysis of water related projects was established in 1983. Davis and Vano's presentation identified existing criticisms and opportunities for improving these guidlines. The Congressional Research Service works exclusively for the U.S. Congress and provides nonpartisan policy and legal analysis.

Published on June 2, 2009