Striving for improvement : The perceived value of improving hurricane forecast accuracy

Hurricanes are the costliest type of natural disaster in the United States. Every year, these natural phenomena destroy billions of dollars in physical capital, displace thousands, and greatly disrupt local economies. While this damage will never be eliminated, the number of fatalities and the cost of preparing and evacuating can be reduced through improved forecasts. This paper seeks to establish the public\u27s willingness to pay for further improvement of hurricane forecasts by integrating atmospheric modeling and a double-bounded dichotomous choice method in a large-scale contingent valuation experiment. Using an interactive survey, we focus on areas affected by hurricanes in 2018 to elicit residents\u27 willingness to pay for improvements along storm track, wind speed, and precipitation forecasts. Our results indicate improvements in wind speed forecast are valued the most, followed by storm track and precipitation, and that maintaining the current annual rate of error reduction for another decade is worth between $90.25 and$121.86 per person in vulnerable areas. Our study focuses on areas recently hit by hurricanes in the United States, but the implications of our results can be extended to areas vulnerable to tropical cyclones globally. In a world where the intensity of hurricanes is expected to increase and research funds are limited, these results can inform relevant agencies regarding the effectiveness of different private and public adaptive actions, as well as the value of publicly funded hurricane research programs

Essays on Housing Affordability and Climate Risk in Florida

In this dissertation I study the relationship between climate risk and housing throughout Florida&#39;s housing market. In the first chapter, I ask how exposure to high intensity hurricane winds affects the outcome on transaction affordability for both single family and condominium housing units. Focusing on Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami Dade County following exposure to Hurricane Wilma in 2005, I use a two-way fixed effects model to estimate how housing affordability of transacted homes correlates with increasing wind exposure. I find that as wind speed increase, transaction affordability decreases and is most prevalent for winds exposed to the highest wind intensity bins. In my second chapter, I estimate the effect of exposure to 2017&#39;s Hurricane Irma on the asking price for rental units throughout Florida. I use a difference-in-differences research design to identify the causal effect of exposure to hurricane winds, finding that homes exposed to hurricane winds (> 73&nbsp;mile per hour winds) see an average increase in rental prices equal to $64.08. Further, I find that a temporary spike in rental demand in the 12 to 24 month period following a hurricane drive the price increases. In my final chapter, I quantify mobile home exposure to climate risk throughout Florida looking at both mobile home parks and private mobile home properties. I find that neighborhoods with the highest count of exposed mobile homes are typically older and have a lower median income than Florida on average.&nbsp;</p