FLOOD POLICIESWhere Flood Policy Helps Most — and Where It Could Do More
A U.S. program provides important flood insurance relief, but it’s used more in communities with greater means to protect themselves.
Flooding, including the devastation caused recently by Hurricane Helene, is responsible for $5 billion in annual damages in the U.S. That’s more than any other type of weather-related extreme event.
To address the problem, the federal government instituted a program in 1990 that helps reduce flood insurance costs in communities enacting measures to better handle flooding. If, say, a town preserves open space as a buffer against coastal flooding, or develops better stormwater management, area policy owners get discounts on their premiums. Studies show the program works well: It has reduced overall flood damage in participating communities.
However, a new study led by an MIT researcher shows that the effects of the program differ greatly from place to place. For instance, higher-population communities, which likely have more means to introduce flood defenses, benefit more than smaller communities, to the tune of about $4,000 per insured household.
“When we evaluate it, the effects of the same policy vary widely among different types of communities,” says study co-author Lidia Cano Pecharromán, a PhD candidate in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.
Referring to climate and environmental justice concerns, she adds: “It’s important to understand not just if a policy is effective, but who is benefitting, so that we can make necessary adjustments and reach all the targets we want to reach.”
The paper, “Exposing Disparities in Flood Adaptation for Equitable Future Interventions in the USA,” is published today in Nature Communications. The authors are Cano Pecharromán and ChangHoon Hahn, an associate research scholar at Princeton University.
Able to Afford Help
The program in question was developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which has a division, the Flood Insurance Mitigation Administration, focusing on this issue. In 1990, FEMA initiated the National Flood Insurance Program’s Community Rating System, which incentivizes communities to enact measures that help prevent or reduce flooding.
Communities can engage in a broad set of related activities, including floodplain mapping, preservation of open spaces, stormwater management activities, creating flood warning systems, or even developing public information and participation programs. In exchange, area residents receive a discount on their flood insurance premium rates.
To conduct the study, the researchers examined 2.5 million flood insurance claims filed with FEMA since then. They also examined U.S. Census Bureau data to analyze demographic and economic data about communities, and incorporated flood risk data from the First Street Foundation.
