Assessing Socioeconomic Resilience to Floods in 90 Countries

Hallegatte, Stephane ; Bangalore, Mook ; Vogt-Schilb, Adrien

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: FLOODING;    LIVING STANDARDS;    TERRORISM;    POOR PEOPLE;    EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7663
RP-ID  :  WPS7663

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper presents a model to assessthe socioeconomic resilience to natural disasters of aneconomy, defined as its capacity to mitigate the impact ofdisaster-related asset losses on welfare, and a tool to helpdecision makers identify the most promising policy optionsto reduce welfare losses due to floods. Calibrated withhousehold surveys, the model suggests that welfare lossesfrom the July 2005 floods in Mumbai were almost double theasset losses, because losses were concentrated on poor andvulnerable populations. Applied to river floods in 90countries, the model provides estimates of country-levelsocioeconomic resilience. Because floods disproportionallyaffect poor people, each $1 of global flood asset loss isequivalent to a $1.6 reduction in the affectedcountry's national income, on average. The model alsoassesses and ranks policy levers to reduce flood losses ineach country. It shows that considering asset losses isinsufficient to assess disaster risk management policies.The same reduction in asset losses results in differentwelfare gains depending on who benefits. And some policies,such as adaptive social protection, do not reduce assetlosses, but still reduce welfare losses. Asset and welfarelosses can even move in opposite directions: increasing byone percentage point the share of income of the bottom 20percent in the 90 countries would increase asset losses by0.6 percent, since more wealth would be at risk. But itwould also reduce the impact of income losses on wellbeing,and ultimately reduce welfare losses by 3.4 percent.