HR: 10:45h
AN: U32B-02 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: The economics of natural disasters
AU: * Hallegatte, S
EM: hallegatte@centre-cired.fr
AF: Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Developpement, 45bis Av de la Belle Gabrielle, Nogent-sur-Marne, 94736, France
AU: * Hallegatte, S
EM: hallegatte@centre-cired.fr
AF: Ecole Nationale de la Meteorologie, Meteo-France, 42, Av. G. Coriolis, Toulouse, 31000, France
AB: Mitigating natural disasters is probably more important for society than it can be inferred from direct losses. Total economic losses, indeed, can be much larger than direct losses, especially for large disasters, which affect the economy for extended periods of time (e.g., New Orleans after Katrina), and represent an important obstacle to economic development in certain regions (e.g. Central America). A series of recent modelling exercises highlights several findings. First, total economic losses due to an event are increasing nonlinearly as a function of its direct losses, because destructions both increase reconstruction needs and reduce reconstruction capacity. Second, endogenous economic dynamics has to be taken into account in the assessment of disaster consequences. More particularly, an economy in the expansion phase of its business cycle appears to be more vulnerable to extreme events than an economy in recession. This result is supported by the fact that worker availability is found to be one of the main obstacles to a rapid and efficient reconstruction. Third, natural disasters can create poverty traps for poor countries, which have a lower ability to fund and carry out reconstruction. As a consequence, climate change impacts from extreme events may be significant, and will depend on how societies are able to adapt their reconstruction capacity to new levels of risk.
DE: 1630 Impacts of global change (1225)
DE: 1817 Extreme events
DE: 3399 General or miscellaneous
SC: Union [U]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly