This paper examines the history of St. Louis, Missouri in coping with flood risk over the past 15 years, with a focus on flood insurance. Six challenges to the continued management of riverine flood risk are identified and discussed. They are (1) many property owners don’t buy flood insurance,...

Floodplain land-use decisions are made by individuals in households, businesses, and local governments. Whatever the venue, the decisions made are the outcome of multiple interacting influences, with one being consideration of flood risk. The goal of a flood risk communication program may be to...

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...

Between 1972 and 1994, the New England Division of the US Army Corps of Engineers undertook five studies evaluating the benefits and costs of protecting natural valley storage (NVS) areas as a flood mitigation strategy in various watersheds. NVS lands function as natural reservoirs, temporarily...

Flood insurance in the United States is offered through the federal National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). After going deeply into debt following the 2005 hurricane season, pricing in the program has been the subject of debate and two reform bills. Private sector insurance pricing has often...

There is a low but uncertain probability that climate change could trigger “mega-catastrophes,” severe and at least partly irreversible adverse effects across broad regions. This paper first discusses the state of current knowledge and the defining characteristics of potential climate change...

Using rockets to launch communications satellites and other spacecraft poses risks to the uninvolved public, including persons and property under the flight path of the launch vehicle. The federal government plays a pivotal technical role during the actual launch by carrying out certain...

Recent events in the financial and insurance markets, as well as the looming challenges of a globally changing climate point to the need to re-think the ways in which we measure and manage catastrophic and dependent risks. Management can only be as good as our measurement tools. To that end,...

This paper reviews the empirical literature on the economic impacts of natural disasters to inform both climate adaptation policy and the estimation of potential climate damages. It covers papers that estimate the short- and long-run economic impacts of weather-related extreme events as well as...

This study examines the redistributional effects of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) using a national database of premium, coverage, and claim payments at the county level between 1980 and 2006. Measuring progressivity as the departure from per capita county income proportionality we...