Computations of indirect losses require county-specific data in addition to an inundation dataset and a structure inventory. The inundation dataset and structure inventory are discussed in Hydraulic Event Computation.
The first required input for indirect loss computations is a polygon shapefile representing each county in the study area. This shapefile must include an attribute that contains the five-digit county Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code for each county in an "SSCCC" format. For the SSCCC format, SS is the two digit state code and CCC is the three digit county code. These can be obtained from the United States Census Bureau TIGER/Lines. The shapefile is used by HEC-FIA to delineate computational boundaries on a county-by-county basis and reference input data to the appropriate county via the FIPS codes.
The second necessary input to the HEC-FIA indirect loss computations is ECAM data. ECAM is a computable general equilibrium model that contains information for each county in the United States related to that county's ability to respond to external economic shocks. ECAM requires total capital (a summation of the structure and content values for all commercial, public, and industrial structure types) and total labor (a summation of the daytime population for all commercial, public, and industrial structure types) for its computations.
In general, capital losses resulting from a flood event make it more difficult (but not impossible) to produce business output. Labor losses occur when people are displaced from an impact area, preventing them from reporting to their jobs as they would under typical circumstances. Like capital losses, labor losses reduce the quantity and efficiency of production. Total capital and labor values can be either manually entered or imported from a HAZUS database.
ECAM also requires users to enter flood duration, the reconstruction period duration, and cleanup period duration. Flood duration depends on how quickly the floodwaters recede and is a single value for the entire watershed. This data can usually be obtained from a hydraulic model. Currently, the user must provide a single value for the entire flooded area, so thought and judgment must be given to the definition of the flood duration time. The reconstruction and cleanup period durations largely depend on the types of structures located in the flooded area.