@article{Hudson2018, author = {Hudson, Paul}, title = {A comparison of definitions of affordability for flood risk adaption measures}, series = {Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change : an international journal devoted to scientific, engineering, socio-economic and policy responses to environmental change}, volume = {23}, journal = {Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change : an international journal devoted to scientific, engineering, socio-economic and policy responses to environmental change}, number = {7}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {1381-2386}, doi = {10.1007/s11027-017-9769-5}, pages = {1019 -- 1038}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Risk-based insurance is a commonly proposed and discussed flood risk adaptation mechanism in policy debates across the world such as in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. However, both risk-based premiums and growing risk pose increasing difficulties for insurance to remain affordable. An empirical concept of affordability is required as the affordability of adaption strategies is an important concern for policymakers, yet such a concept is not often examined. Therefore, a robust metric with a commonly acceptable affordability threshold is required. A robust metric allows for a previously normative concept to be quantified in monetary terms, and in this way, the metric is rendered more suitable for integration into public policy debates. This paper investigates the degree to which risk-based flood insurance premiums are unaffordable in Europe. In addition, this paper compares the outcomes generated by three different definitions of unaffordability in order to investigate the most robust definition. In doing so, the residual income definition was found to be the least sensitive to changes in the threshold. While this paper focuses on Europe, the selected definition can be employed elsewhere in the world and across adaption measures in order to develop a common metric for indicating the potential unaffordability problem.}, language = {en} } @misc{HudsonBotzenPoussinetal.2019, author = {Hudson, Paul and Botzen, W. J. Wouter and Poussin, Jennifer and Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.}, title = {Impacts of flooding and flood preparedness on subjective well-being}, series = {Journal of Happiness Studies}, volume = {20}, journal = {Journal of Happiness Studies}, number = {2}, publisher = {Springer Science}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {1389-4978}, doi = {10.1007/s10902-017-9916-4}, pages = {665 -- 682}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Flood disasters severely impact human subjective well-being (SWB). Nevertheless, few studies have examined the influence of flood events on individual well-being and how such impacts may be limited by flood protection measures. This study estimates the long term impacts on individual subjective well-being of flood experiences, individual subjective flood risk perceptions, and household flood preparedness decisions. These effects are monetised and placed in context through a comparison with impacts of other adverse events on well-being. We collected data from households in flood-prone areas in France. The results indicate that experiencing a flood has a large negative impact on subjective well-being that is incompletely attenuated over time. Moreover, individuals do not need to be directly affected by floods to suffer SWB losses since subjective well-being is lower for those who expect their flood risk to increase or who have seen a neighbour being flooded. Floodplain inhabitants who prepared for flooding by elevating their home have a higher subjective well-being. A monetisation of the aforementioned well-being impacts shows that a flood requires Euro150,000 in immediate compensation to attenuate SWB losses. The decomposition of the monetised impacts of flood experience into tangible losses and intangible effects on SWB shows that intangible effects are about twice as large as the tangible direct monetary flood losses. Investments in flood protection infrastructure may be under funded if the intangible SWB benefits of flood protection are not taken into account.}, language = {en} } @article{UnterbergerHudsonBotzenetal.2018, author = {Unterberger, Christian and Hudson, Paul and Botzen, W. J. Wouter and Schroeer, Katharina and Steininger, Karl W.}, title = {Future public sector flood risk and risk sharing arrangements}, series = {Ecological economics}, volume = {156}, journal = {Ecological economics}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0921-8009}, doi = {10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.09.019}, pages = {153 -- 163}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Climate change, along with socio-economic development, will increase the economic impacts of floods. While the factors that influence flood risk to private property have been extensively studied, the risk that natural disasters pose to public infrastructure and the resulting implications on public sector budgets, have received less attention. We address this gap by developing a two-staged model framework, which first assesses the flood risk to public infrastructure in Austria. Combining exposure and vulnerability information at the building level with inundation maps, we project an increase in riverine flood damage, which progressively burdens public budgets. Second, the risk estimates are integrated into an insurance model, which analyzes three different compensation arrangements in terms of the monetary burden they place on future governments' budgets and the respective volatility of payments. Formalized insurance compensation arrangements offer incentives for risk reduction measures, which lower the burden on public budgets by reducing the vulnerability of buildings that are exposed to flooding. They also significantly reduce the volatility of payments and thereby improve the predictability of flood damage expenditures. These features indicate that more formalized insurance arrangements are an improvement over the purely public compensation arrangement currently in place in Austria.}, language = {en} }