Search

The coastal area of Costa de Caparica is an important territory representing one of the main affected areas by storms such as Hercules in 2013 and 2014. This paper propose a new coastal risk assessment to coastal floods, combining GIS-based inundation analysis over the last 35 years, coastal vulnerability model based on geological and physical variables and, valuation of surface' elements exposed to storms considering territorial and human components. Along with the methodology proposed for local scale, this paper points out strengths and weakness, comparing the results with another simple method to achieve coastal risk by floods. Based on this study, the paper identifies potential directions for future research contributing in management, rescue and safety decisions with local authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flooding is the natural disaster that causes the most damage. Postflood, many families are not insured and do not have sufficient savings for rebuilding, and governmental aid can be limited. We undertake, using a stated preference survey, the first willingness-to-pay (WTP) elicitation for flood insurance in the United States. WTP increases with modeled flood risk and flood-risk perceptions. WTP for residents in our study area's 100-year floodplain is 47% to 59% of the median flood insurance premium, which suggests the need for financial assistance for families who are at risk of flood damage and are unable to afford risk-based premiums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying a difference-in-differences framework to a census of residential property transactions in New York City 2003–17, we estimate the price effects of three flood risk signals: (1) the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act, which increased premiums; (2) Hurricane Sandy; and (3) new floodplain maps reflecting three decades of climate change. Estimates are negative for all three signals, and some are large: properties included in the new floodplain after escaping flooding by Sandy experienced 11% price reductions. We investigate possible mechanisms, including selection of properties into the market and residential sorting. Finding no evidence for these, we develop a parsimonious theoretical model that allows decomposition of our reduced-form estimates into the effects of insurance premium changes and belief updating. Results suggest the new maps induced belief changes comparable to those from insurance reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of flood events on flood risk perception has important implications for policy. Applying a novel dataset featuring the flooding extents from a severe event in Colorado, we disentangle inundated properties from "near misses," defined as structures not directly flooded but located inside the 100-year floodplain. Using a triple-difference hedonic framework, we show that inundated properties inside the floodplain underwent a decrease in price after the flood, while near misses saw a relative price increase. We speculate that inundated properties are perceived as being riskier and near misses relatively less risky, suggesting the possible influence of the availability heuristic or Bayesian learning. (JEL Q54, Q58) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Community Rating System (CRS) program was implemented by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1990 as an optional program to encourage communities to voluntarily engage in flood mitigation initiatives. This article uses national census tract‐level data from 1980 to 2010 to estimate whether CRS participation and flood risk affect a community's local patterns of population change. We employ an instrumental‐variables strategy to address the potential endogeneity of CRS participation, based on community‐scale demographic factors that predict when a tract's host community joins the CRS. The results find significant effects of the CRS program and flood risk on population change. Taken together, the findings point to greater propensity for community‐scale flood management in areas with more newcomers and programs such as CRS stabilizing population, though not especially in flood‐prone areas. We observe the CRS neither displacing population toward lower‐risk areas nor attracting more people to flood‐prone areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a theoretical framework characterizing (1) the attenuation of flood risks revealed by the flood zone designation in flood insurance rate maps and (2) the asymmetric impacts of adding versus removing flood zone status on property values. We apply spatial fixed effects models to empirically investigate the impacts of flood zone status and test the proposed theory. The results indicate that housing values decrease by more than 11% when a property is assigned into a flood zone. However, property values do not rebound when flood zone status is removed. (JEL Q51) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature finds evidence that flood risk salience varies over time, spiking directly following a flood and then falling off individuals' cognitive radar in the following years. In this article, we provide new evidence of salience exploiting a hurricane cluster impacting Florida that was preceded and followed by periods of unusual calm. Utilizing residential property sales across the state from 2002 through 2012, our main estimate finds a salience impact of −8%, on average. The salience effect persists when we base estimation only on spatial variation in prices to limit confounding from other simultaneous changes due to shifting hedonic equilibria over time. These effects range from housing prices decreases of 5.4–12.3% depending on the year of sale. Understanding flood risk salience has important implications for flood insurance and disaster policy, the benefits transfer literature, and, more broadly, our understanding of natural disaster resilience. JEL Classification: Q51, Q54, R21 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data for North Carolina communities, we estimate dynamic regression models of flood mitigation projects as recognized by the Community Rating System (CRS) of the National Flood Insurance Program. We find serial correlation in CRS points, which we interpret as incremental persistence that reflects physical and human capital accumulation. We find greater levels of mitigation in communities with larger tax revenues and lower levels of crime and unemployment, and a weak, but significant, effect due to recent flood experience. Socioeconomic factors also affect hazard mitigation; CRS points are greater in communities with greater median household income and higher population density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the relationships between hurricanes, flood risk saliency, and residential property investment. Our analysis utilizes data detailing capital investment projects in homes matched to spatial data delineating the locations of structures damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Utilizing a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, we estimate a significant increase in the probability a homeowner invests in a damaged building located in a flood risk area. However, we fail to detect a statistically significant change in the rate of investment among damaged properties outside of these areas. We investigate the mechanisms through which a hurricane may influence households' perceptions of risk by modeling changes in investment between properties in and out of flood risk zones restricting attention to the set of structures that failed to experience any storm damage. Model results suggest that while a recent storm may increase perceived risks, the spatial path of storm damage is an important mechanism driving these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use hedonic property models to estimate the changes in implicit flood risk premium following a large flood event. Previous studies have used flood hazard maps to proxy flood risk. In addition to knowing whether a property lies in the floodplain, we use a unique data set with the flood inundation map. We find that the price discount for properties in the inundated area is substantially larger than in comparable properties in the floodplain that did not get inundated. This suggests that, in addition to capturing an information effect, the larger discount in inundated properties reflects potential uninsurable flood damages, and supports a hypothesis that homeowners respond better to what they have visualized ('seeing is believing'). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]