IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-13-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Flooding and Resilience: Valuing Conservation Investments in a World with Climate Change

Author

Listed:
  • Kousky, Carolyn

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Walls, Margaret

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Chu, Ziyan

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

Communities in the United States are showing increasing interest in the use of forests, wetlands, and other natural areas to provide protection against extreme events. As the climate changes and such events become more frequent and/or more severe, investments in the conservation of natural areas should become more valuable. But how much more valuable is an open question. In this study, we evaluate the climate resilience benefits of a green infrastructure investment in Missouri: the Meramec Greenway. A buffer of forested lands and other open space, the Meramec Greenway runs along the Meramec River from its confluence with the Mississippi River south of St. Louis into the Ozark uplands. The study builds off of a recent benefit–cost analysis of the Greenway conducted by the authors but evaluates the additional benefits of floodplain conservation that might be provided if floods in the region (a) become more frequent and/or (b) worsen in severity. Results suggest that the benefits of the Greenway in terms of avoided flood damages are greater in both types of climate change scenarios. However, the size of the benefits under current conditions is the more important finding; climate change reinforces the value of the conservation investment but is not the main story.

Suggested Citation

  • Kousky, Carolyn & Walls, Margaret & Chu, Ziyan, 2013. "Flooding and Resilience: Valuing Conservation Investments in a World with Climate Change," RFF Working Paper Series dp-13-38, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-13-38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-13-38.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul J. Ferraro, 2003. "Assigning priority to environmental policy interventions in a heterogeneous world," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 27-43.
    2. Kousky, Carolyn & Walls, Margaret, 2014. "Floodplain conservation as a flood mitigation strategy: Examining costs and benefits," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 119-128.
    3. Lawrence H. Goulder & Roberton C. Williams, 2012. "The Choice Of Discount Rate For Climate Change Policy Evaluation," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(04), pages 1-18.
    4. Holly P. Jones & David G. Hole & Erika S. Zavaleta, 2012. "Harnessing nature to help people adapt to climate change," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(7), pages 504-509, July.
    5. Boyd, James & Epanchin-Niell, Rebecca & Siikamaki, Juha, 2012. "Conservation Return on Investment Analysis: A Review of Results, Methods, and New Directions," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-01, Resources for the Future.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Galen Newman & Garett T. Sansom & Siyu Yu & Katie R. Kirsch & Dongying Li & Youjung Kim & Jennifer A. Horney & Gunwoo Kim & Saima Musharrat, 2022. "A Framework for Evaluating the Effects of Green Infrastructure in Mitigating Pollutant Transferal and Flood Events in Sunnyside, Houston, TX," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-16, April.
    2. Diana Carolina Del Angel & David Yoskowitz & Matthew Vernon Bilskie & Scott C. Hagen, 2022. "A Socioeconomic Dataset of the Risk Associated with the 1% and 0.2% Return Period Stillwater Flood Elevation under Sea-Level Rise for the Northern Gulf of Mexico," Data, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-15, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kousky, Carolyn & Walls, Margaret, 2014. "Floodplain conservation as a flood mitigation strategy: Examining costs and benefits," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 119-128.
    2. Jianxin Yang & Jian Gong & Wenwu Tang, 2019. "Prioritizing Spatially Aggregated Cost-Effective Sites in Natural Reserves to Mitigate Human-Induced Threats: A Case Study of the Qinghai Plateau, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-23, March.
    3. Chabba, Meenakshi & Bhat, Mahadev G. & Sarmiento, Juan Pablo, 2022. "Risk-based benefit-cost analysis of ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction with considerations of co-benefits, equity, and sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    4. Margaret Walls & Yusuke Kuwayama, 2019. "Evaluating Payments for Watershed Services Programs in the United States," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(04), pages 1-38, October.
    5. Allan Beltrán & David Maddison & Robert J. R. Elliott, 2018. "Assessing the Economic Benefits of Flood Defenses: A Repeat‐Sales Approach," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(11), pages 2340-2367, November.
    6. Mutlu, Asli & Roy, Debraj & Filatova, Tatiana, 2023. "Capitalized value of evolving flood risks discount and nature-based solution premiums on property prices," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    7. Adrian Amelung, 2016. "Das "Paris-Agreement": Durchbruch der Top-Down-Klimaschutzverhandlungen im Kreise der Vereinten Nationen," Otto-Wolff-Institut Discussion Paper Series 03/2016, Otto-Wolff-Institut für Wirtschaftsordnung, Köln, Deutschland.
    8. Camila I. Donatti & Celia A. Harvey & David Hole & Steven N. Panfil & Hanna Schurman, 2020. "Indicators to measure the climate change adaptation outcomes of ecosystem-based adaptation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 413-433, February.
    9. Lima, Letícia Santos de & Ramos Barón, Pablo Andres & Villamayor-Tomas, Sergio & Krueger, Tobias, 2019. "Will PES Schemes Survive in the Long-term Without Evidence of Their Effectiveness? Exploring Four Water-related Cases in Colombia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 211-223.
    10. Cho, Seong-Hoon & Kim, Taeyoung & Larson, Eric R. & Armsworth, Paul R., 2017. "Economies of scale in forestland acquisition costs for nature conservation," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 73-82.
    11. José Armando Cobián Álvarez & Budy P. Resosudarmo, 2019. "The cost of floods in developing countries’ megacities: a hedonic price analysis of the Jakarta housing market, Indonesia," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 21(4), pages 555-577, October.
    12. Nazmul Huq & Alexander Stubbings, 2015. "How is the Role of Ecosystem Services Considered in Local Level Flood Management Policies: Case Study in Cumbria, England," Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 17(04), pages 1-29, December.
    13. Jim, C.Y., 2014. "Air-conditioning energy consumption due to green roofs with different building thermal insulation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 49-59.
    14. Dobes Leo & Jotzo Frank & Stern David I., 2014. "The Economics of Global Climate Change: A Historical Literature Review," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 65(3), pages 281-320, December.
    15. Rezende, Camila Linhares & Fraga, Joana Stingel & Sessa, Juliana Cabral & de Souza, Gustavo Vinagre Pinto & Assad, Eduardo Delgado & Scarano, Fabio Rubio, 2018. "Land use policy as a driver for climate change adaptation: A case in the domain of the Brazilian Atlantic forest," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 563-569.
    16. Anna Ágústsdóttir, 2015. "Ecosystem approach for natural hazard mitigation of volcanic tephra in Iceland: building resilience and sustainability," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 78(3), pages 1669-1691, September.
    17. Bostian, Moriah B. & Herlihy, Alan T., 2014. "Valuing tradeoffs between agricultural production and wetland condition in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 284-291.
    18. James Ford & Diana King, 2015. "A framework for examining adaptation readiness," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 505-526, April.
    19. Meri Davlasheridze & Qin Fan, 2019. "Valuing Seawall Protection in the Wake of Hurricane Ike," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 257-279, October.
    20. Justin Contat & Caroline Hopkins & Luis Mejia & Matthew Suandi, 2023. "When Climate Meets Real Estate: A Survey of the Literature," FHFA Staff Working Papers 23-05, Federal Housing Finance Agency.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    land conservation; extreme weather events; peak discharges; Hazus; avoided flood damages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water
    • Q24 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Land

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-13-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.