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|a Overwhelming Risk |h [electronic resource] |b Rethinking Flood Insurance in a World of Rising Seas. |
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|a [S.l.] : |b Union of Concerned Scientists, |c 2013. |
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|a Please contact the owning institution for licensing and permissions. It is the user's responsibility to ensure use does not violate any third party rights. |
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|a Storms strike the U.S. coast each year,
sometimes with devastating force. Both the risks
and the costs of flooding and wind damage to seaside
coastal communities are growing.1 Rising population
and increasing development along scenic coastlines
are putting more people and more valuable property in
harm’s way. Accelerating sea level rise, which puts higher
water levels in the path of coastal storms, is a growing
threat, especially along the East and Gulf Coasts of the
United States, which have seen much higher and faster
rates of sea level rise than the global average.2 Global
warming has resulted in stronger and more destructive
hurricanes in the North Atlantic, and more frequent
heavy rain events. Together, those socioeconomic and
climate-related trends are driving increased property
damage and loss along our coasts—costs that are projected
only to grow in a warming world.
In the face of increasingly unmanageable risks, many
private insurers have left the coastal insurance market.
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is now
practically the sole provider of flood insurance for home
owners and small businesses nationwide. To ensure
widespread coverage against flooding and storm damages
at an affordable cost, the federal government and many
state governments have established taxpayer-backed subsidized
insurance options. However, the artificially low
insurance rates that result, and other aspects of these subsidized
programs, have instead allowed—indeed, reinforced—
risky patterns of land development. They have
also created perverse incentives for repetitive insurance
claims and an unsustainable level of financial exposure
for all taxpayers, who ultimately help pay for insurance
claims and disaster relief in the event of a major storm.
With sea levels projected to rise globally between at
least eight inches and more than six and a half feet above
1992 levels by the end of this century, and at a substantially
faster rate than at present along densely populated
parts of the East Coast, our risk of physical and financial
harm is rising rapidly, too. We urgently need to reform our
insurance system so that it can help us manage these risks
effectively, even as we invest in measures to slow global
warming and sea level rise and prepare for their impacts. |
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|a Electronic reproduction. |c Florida International University, |d 2015. |f (dpSobek) |n Mode of access: World Wide Web. |n System requirements: Internet connectivity; Web browser software. |
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|a dpSobek |c Sea Level Rise |
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|u http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI15062011/00001 |y Click here for full text |
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|3 Host material |u http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/flood-insurance-sea-level-rise.html#.Vae2eaRVhBc |y Overwhelming Risk |
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|a http://dpanther.fiu.edu/sobek/content/FI/15/06/20/11/00001/FI15062011thm.jpg |
