Review article: Assessing the costs of natural hazards - state of the art and knowledge gaps

Efficiently reducing natural hazard risks requires a thorough understanding of the costs of natural hazards. Current methods to assess these costs employ a variety of terminologies and approaches for different types of natural hazards and different impacted sectors. This may impede efforts to ascertain comprehensive and comparable cost figures. In order to strengthen the role of cost assessments in the development of integrated natural hazard management, a review of existing cost assessment approaches was undertaken. This review considers droughts, floods, coastal and Alpine hazards, and examines different cost types, namely direct tangible damages, losses due to business interruption, indirect damages, intangible effects, and the costs of risk mitigation. This paper provides an overview of the state-of-the-art cost assessment approaches and discusses key knowledge gaps. It shows that the application of cost assessments in practice is often incomplete and biased, as direct costs receive a relatively large amount of attention, while intangible and indirect effects are rarely considered. Furthermore, all parts of cost assessment entail considerable uncertainties due to insufficient or highly aggregated data sources, along with a lack of knowledge about the processes leading to damage and thus the appropriate models required. Recommendations are provided on how to reduce or handle these uncertainties by improving data sources and cost assessment methods. Further recommendations address how risk dynamics due to climate and socio-economic change can be better considered, how costs are distributed and risks transferred, and in what ways cost assessment can function as part of decision support

Inter-basin transfers as a supply option: the end of an era?

International audienceThis chapter discusses the evolving role of interbasin transfers (IBT) in urban water management. After providing an historical overview of IBT development, the chapter describes how IBTs are challenged by a change in the technological and socio-economic context. The emergence of alternative technologies, such as desalination, wastewater reclamation and reuse, or managed artificial groundwater recharge is reducing the attractiveness of IBTs. Water utilities are also becoming increasingly aware that water conservation programs can save volumes of water at a much cheaper cost than IBT. Various international examples are used to show that IBTs trigger increasing concerns from communities involved or affected, in particular related to the environmental impact on donor and receiving river basins, the economic impact on donor regions, the impact on local cultures and livelihoods, how costs and benefits are distributed (social justice), and issues related to public participation. The chapter concludes by looking ahead at new and more efficient uses of existing IBTs. As conjunctive use management approaches gain support, IBTs will be operated in conjunction with aquifer storage and recovery schemes. They will probably also support the development of emerging water markets, in particular during drought years

Review article: assessing the costs of natural hazards - state of the art and knowledge gaps

Efficiently reducing natural hazard risks requires a thorough understanding of the costs of natural hazards. Current methods to assess these costs employ a variety of terminologies and approaches for different types of natural hazards and different impacted sectors. This may impede efforts to ascertain comprehensive and comparable cost figures. In order to strengthen the role of cost assessments in the development of integrated natural hazard management, a review of existing cost assessment approaches was undertaken. This review considers droughts, floods, coastal and Alpine hazards, and examines different cost types, namely direct tangible damages, losses due to business interruption, indirect damages, intangible effects, and the costs of risk mitigation. This paper provides an overview of the state-of-the-art cost assessment approaches and discusses key knowledge gaps. It shows that the application of cost assessments in practice is often incomplete and biased, as direct costs receive a relatively large amount of attention, while intangible and indirect effects are rarely considered. Furthermore, all parts of cost assessment entail considerable uncertainties due to insufficient or highly aggregated data sources, along with a lack of knowledge about the processes leading to damage and thus the appropriate models required. Recommendations are provided on how to reduce or handle these uncertainties by improving data sources and cost assessment methods. Further recommendations address how risk dynamics due to climate and socio-economic change can be better considered, how costs are distributed and risks transferred, and in what ways cost assessment can function as part of decision support

Flood-resilient waterfront development in New York City: bridging flood insurance, building codes, and flood zoning

Waterfronts are attractive areas for many—often competing—uses in New York City (NYC) and are seen as multifunctional locations for economic, environmental, and social activities on the interface between land and water. The NYC waterfront plays a crucial role as a first line of flood defense and in managing flood risk and protecting the city from future climate change and sea-level rise. The city of New York has embarked on a climate adaptation program (PlaNYC) outlining the policies needed to anticipate the impacts of climate change. As part of this policy, the Department of City Planning is currently preparing Vision 2020: New York City Comprehensive Waterfront Plan for the over 500 miles of NYC waterfront (NYC-DCP, 2011). An integral part of the vision is to improve resilience to climate change and sea-level rise. This study seeks to provide guidance for advancing the goals of NYC Vision 2020 by assessing how flood insurance, flood zoning, and building code policies can contribute to waterfront development that is more resilient to climate change

Retour vers le futur de l’échange marchand

Cet article vise à présenter les contributions majeures de l’ouvrage collectif intitulé Les reconfigurationsde l’échange marchand : Tour d’horizon, enjeux et perspectives, publié aux Presses universitaires du Québec etdirigé par les professeurs Myriam Ertz, Julien Bousquet et Damien Hallegatte. D’après l’ensemble des collaborateurs de cet ouvrage, l’échange marchand est en mutation profonde. Cette métamorphose a résulté en quatre grandes évolutions : une conceptualisation revue de l’échange marchand, l’émergence de devisesd’échanges alternatives, la réactualisation du produit aux coeur d’échange reconfigurés, et la quête de sens dans la consommation. Si les causes de ces évolutions sont assez difficiles à isoler de manière précise, il n’endemeure pas moins que cette modification en profondeur de la manière dont fonctionne le marché résulte dela convergence de trois tendances lourdes : les évolutions technologiques, les évolutions socioculturelles, et lescontraintes économico-financières. Cet article résume ainsi les domaines de changement ainsi que les causesde changement tel qu’identifié par les auteurs de l’ouvrage collectif.</jats:p

Should marginal abatement costs differ across sectors? The effect of low-carbon capital accumulation.

2013The optimal timing, sectoral distribution, and cost of greenhouse gas emission reductions is different when abatement is obtained though abatement expenditures chosen along an abatement cost curve, or through investment in low-carbon capital. In the latter framework, optimal investment costs differ in each sector: they are equal to the value of avoided carbon emissions, minus the value of the forgone option to invest later. It is therefore misleading to assess the cost-efficiency of investments in low-carbon capital by comparing levelized abatement costs, that is, efforts measured as the ratio of investment costs to discounted abatement. The equimarginal principle applies to an accounting value: the Marginal Implicit Rental Cost of the Capital (MIRCC) used to abate.Two apparently opposite views are reconciled. On the one hand, higher efforts are justified in sectors that will take longer to decarbonize, such as urban planning; on the other hand, the MIRCC should be equal to the carbon price at each point in time and in all sectors. Equalizing the MIRCC in each sector to the social cost of carbon is a necessary condition to reach the optimal pathway, but it is not a sufficient condition. Decentralized optimal investment decisions at the sector level require not only the information contained in the carbon price signal, but also knowledge of the date when the sector reaches its full abatement potential

Retour vers le futur de l’échange marchand

Cet article vise à présenter les contributions majeures de l’ouvrage collectif intitulé Les reconfigurations de l’échange marchand : Tour d’horizon, enjeux et perspectives, publié aux Presses universitaires du Québec et dirigé par les professeurs Myriam Ertz, Julien Bousquet et Damien Hallegatte. D’après l’ensemble des collaborateurs de cet ouvrage, l’échange marchand est en mutation profonde. Cette métamorphose a résulté en quatre grandes évolutions : une conceptualisation revue de l’échange marchand, l’émergence de devises d’échanges alternatives, la réactualisation du produit aux coeur d’échange reconfigurés, et la quête de sens dans la consommation. Si les causes de ces évolutions sont assez difficiles à isoler de manière précise, il n’en demeure pas moins que cette modification en profondeur de la manière dont fonctionne le marché résulte de la convergence de trois tendances lourdes : les évolutions technologiques, les évolutions socioculturelles, et les contraintes économico-financières. Cet article résume ainsi les domaines de changement ainsi que les causes de changement tel qu’identifié par les auteurs de l’ouvrage collectif.This article outlines the major contributions of the collective book entitled Les reconfigurations de l’échange marchand : Tour d’horizon, enjeux et perspectives, published by Presses Universitaires du Québec and edited by professors Myriam Ertz, Julien Bousquet and Damien Hallegatte. According to the contributors of this article, commercial exchange is undergoing a deep change. This transformation led to four main evolutions: a reviewed conceptualization of commercial exchange, the emergence of alternative exchange currencies, updating of the product at the core of re-engineered exchanges, and a quest for a meaning in consumption. If causes of these evolutions are difficult to isolate accurately, it remains that this deep change in the way markets function leads to the convergence of three underlying trends: technological evolutions, sociocultural evolutions, and economic and financial constraints. This article summarizes the areas and the causes of change as identified by the authors of the collective work