Assessing Socioeconomic Resilience to Floods in 90 Countries

This paper presents a model to assess the socioeconomic resilience to natural disasters of an economy, defined as its capacity to mitigate the impact of disaster-related asset losses on welfare, and a tool to help decision makers identify the most promising policy options to reduce welfare losses due to floods. Calibrated with household surveys, the model suggests that welfare losses from the July 2005 floods in Mumbai were almost double the asset losses, because losses were concentrated on poor and vulnerable populations. Applied to river floods in 90 countries, the model provides estimates of country-level socioeconomic resilience. Because floods disproportionally affect poor people, each $1 of global flood asset loss is equivalent to a $1.6 reduction in the affected country's national income, on average. The model also assesses and ranks policy levers to reduce flood losses in each country. It shows that considering asset losses is insufficient to assess disaster risk management policies. The same reduction in asset losses results in different welfare gains depending on who benefits. And some policies, such as adaptive social protection, do not reduce asset losses, but still reduce welfare losses. Asset and welfare losses can even move in opposite directions: increasing by one percentage point the share of income of the bottom 20 percent in the 90 countries would increase asset losses by 0.6 percent, since more wealth would be at risk. But it would also reduce the impact of income losses on wellbeing, and ultimately reduce welfare losses by 3.4 percent.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Bangalore, Mook, Hallegatte, Stephane, Vogt-Schilb, Adrien
Format:	Working Paper biblioteca
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2016-05
Subjects:	FLOODING, LIVING STANDARDS, TERRORISM, POOR PEOPLE, EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS, RISKS, CASUALTIES, POVERTY REDUCTION, EARLY WARNING, RISK REDUCTION, SOCIAL SAFETY NETS, DISASTER SITUATIONS, EMERGENCY RESPONSE, INCOME, INTEREST, DISASTER‐RISK, DISASTER SITUATION, EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES, MORAL HAZARD, DISCOUNT RATE, COUNTERFACTUAL, GDP PER CAPITA, INFORMATION, ELASTICITY, HEALTH CARE, DEATH, FOOD POLICY, RURAL LIVELIHOODS, WELFARE, HIGH INEQUALITY, RISK‐SHARING, FLOOD PROTECTION, PREVENTIVE ACTIONS, DISASTER, EARLY WARNINGS, DAMAGES, WEALTH, BENEFICIARIES, RISK‐TAKING, MEASURES, VALUE OF OUTPUT, DISASTER MANAGEMENT, EARTHQUAKES, HOUSEHOLD‐LEVEL DATA, EXTREME WEATHER, SAFETY NETS, DEVELOPMENT, INFORMAL INSURANCE, SAVINGS, CREDIT RATINGS, NATURAL DISASTER, CLIMATE‐CHANGE, REDUCING POVERTY, FLOODS, INCOME INEQUALITY, FLOODED, PRODUCTIVITY, TRANSFERS, NATURAL DISASTERS, MARKETS, RATES, DISASTERS, HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS, CLIMATE CHANGE, INCOME LEVELS, HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, UTILITY, DISCOUNTED VALUE, INSURANCE CONTRACTS, RISK MANAGEMENT POLICIES, FLOOD INSURANCE, UNEMPLOYMENT, TECHNOLOGY, DROUGHTS, CONSUMPTION, REGULATIONS, HUMAN CAPITAL, EMERGENCY, INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY, CAPITAL, DISASTER RISK, IMPACT OF DISASTER, VALUE, LOSSES, BANK, APPLICATIONS, CREDIT, EXTREME EVENTS, POOR COUNTRIES, NATIONAL INCOME, VICTIMS, DAMAGE, IMPACT OF DISASTERS, DISASTER INSURANCE, RURAL, ASSETS, RISK‐ TAKING, FLOOD, ECONOMIC SITUATION, RISK TRANSFER, POOR PERSON, INSURANCE, DEATH TOLL, TARGETING, LOSS, TRADE, GDP, FOOD INTAKE, HURRICANE, RISK, UNINSURED LOSSES, WARNING SYSTEMS, POVERTY, FATALITIES, DISASTER RISK REDUCTION, RISK MANAGEMENT, POOR, EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS, EVACUATION, AVERAGE PRODUCTIVITY, WEATHER EVENTS, SAFETY, MARGINAL UTILITY, NATURAL HAZARDS, RECONSTRUCTION, BENEFITS, DEVELOPMENT POLICY, INEQUALITY, POOR HOUSEHOLDS,
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/05/26361020/assessing-socioeconomic-resilience-floods-90-countries https://hdl.handle.net/10986/24503
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