Costs of Defending Against Rising Sea Levels and Flooding in Mid-Atlantic Metropolitan Coastal Areas: The Basic Issues

Rising ocean levels have resulted in increasingly severe flooding in numerous metropol-itan coastal areas. What would it cost to minimize or eliminate such damage? Relatively little economic work has been done to provide an answer, at least partially because some authori-ties believe attempts to deal with flooding ultimately are futile. Further, discussions of fund-ing always involve massive welfare transfers from the non-flooded to the flooded. The cost of erecting a single mile of new sea wall exceeds $35 million in 2009 dollars and annual mainten-ance costs range between 5 and 10 percent.