1. Flood insurance is a driver of population growth in European floodplains.
- Author
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Tesselaar, Max, Botzen, W. J. Wouter, Tiggeloven, Timothy, and Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.
- Subjects
FLOOD insurance ,CLIMATE change adaptation ,FLOOD risk ,FLOODPLAINS ,GOVERNMENT policy on climate change ,INSURANCE policies - Abstract
Future flood risk assessments typically focus on changing hazard conditions as a result of climate change, where flood exposure is assumed to remain static or develop according to exogenous scenarios. However, this study presents a method to project future riverine flood risk in Europe by simulating population growth in floodplains, where households' settlement location decisions endogenously depend on environmental and institutional factors, including amenities associated with river proximity, riverine flood risk, and insurance against this risk. Our results show that population growth in European floodplains and, consequently, rising riverine flood risk are considerably higher when the dis-amenity caused by flood risk is offset by insurance. This outcome is particularly evident in countries where flood risk is covered collectively and notably less where premiums reflect the risk of individual households. This study finds that flood insurance policy design affects economic development in floodplains and, consequently, flood risk in Europe. Therefore, the authors advocate for flood insurance design to be integrated in climate change adaptation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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