For further reading:
Downton, M., J. Z. B. Miller and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. Reanalysis of U.S. National Weather Service Flood Loss Database, Natural Hazards Review, 6:13-22. (PDF)
Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2000: Flood Impacts on Society: Damaging Floods as a Framework for Assessment. Chapter 21 in D. Parker (ed.), Floods. Routledge Press: London, 133-155. (PDF)
Pielke, Jr., R. A., and R. A. Pielke, Sr. (eds.), 2000: Storms: a volume in the nine-volume series of Natural Hazards & Disasters Major Works published by Routledge Press as a contribution to the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. Routledge Press: London.
Pielke, Jr., R. A., 1997: The Social and Economic Impacts of Weather Workshop Report, ESIG/NCAR, Boulder, CO, May.
Accurate estimates of the economic impacts of a disaster’s impacts are important for a number of practical reasons. In 1999, the National Research Council (NRC) issued a report titled, “The Impacts of Natural Disasters: A Framework for Loss Estimation” which stated that such data would be useful in making decisions about disasters:
” … a baseline set of loss data, together with cost and benefit estimates of alternative mitigation measures, would allow the federal government and individuals and firms in the private sector to design and implement cost-effective strategies for mitigating the losses from natural disasters. Insurers could certainly use the data to improve their estimates of future payouts associated with disasters. And researchers and experts in disaster loss estimation could benefit from a standardized data base that would enable them to improve estimates of both the direct and indirect losses of disasters. These improvements in turn would assist policymakers in their efforts to devise policies to reduce the losses caused by future disasters. Beyond providing an indicator of total natural disaster losses to the nation, the framework for loss estimation described in this report would also provide detailed information on losses. A better understanding of issues such as who bears disaster losses, what are the main types of damages in different disasters, and how those losses differ spatially, are of critical importance in making decisions about allocating resources for mitigation, research, and response.”
However, the NRC also found, “Despite the frequency and expenses of natural disasters, there exists no system in either the public or private sector for consistently compiling information about their economic impacts.” The NRC’s conclusions have been echoed by reports from the Heinz Center, Rand (prepared for OSTP), and from scholars such as Mileti, Hooke and Changnon. To date, no such database exists. A good deal of my own research over the past ten years has been motivated by this situation.
Tabulating economic losses is not straightforward. Damage estimates are a function of what is counted, how it is counted, over a certain time and space. In what follows, I present an excerpt from our 1997 book on hurricanes that briefly describes some of the methodological challenges of damage estimation and tabulation. Tomorrow we’ll start looking at some actual data.
For those of you who would like a reference to the discussion below, a version of the below also appeared as a short essay in 1997. Here is that reference:
Pielke, Jr., R. A., 1997: Trends in Hurricane Impacts in the United States. Crop Insurance Today, 30(3), 8-10,18. ( PDF, apologies for the poor quality of the copy)
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