In the 2000 book The Hidden Costs of Coastal Hazards, the Heinz Center argued that impacts on the natural environment of hurricanes, etc could be substantial. In a recently published paper, Adam Rose and myself argue to the contrary. At least, relative to the costs to the built environment, business environment, and social environment the costs to the natural environment are puny. In a bold bit of journal management, the editors were brave enough to publish a paper with a "no big deal" conclusion. However, since we used benefits transfer and didn't include all likely costs, we conclude that more research is needed:
A case by case analysis is needed, rather than the application of any generalization from our study that environmental benefits of natural hazard mitigation are relatively minor.
