An upcoming study by economists at University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Santa Barbara; and San Francisco State University modeled 15 miles of California beaches and found large differences in the costs and benefits of shoring up eroding coastlines.
Assuming a low-end estimate of 1 meter sea-level rise, a 100-year flood at San Francisco's Ocean Beach would cause $285 million in property damage, compared to $107 million in 2000.
At Venice Beach in Los Angeles, damages would rise from $10 million to $131 million. Damages from tourists choosing to spend their dollars elsewhere would also have outsize impact on Venice Beach; the popular stretch of boardwalk would lose up to $7 billion by 2100, compared to $385 million at Ocean Beach if sea levels rise 2 meters, the highest level the researchers analyzed.
Such results would inform policymakers, homeowners and insurers' decisions on what to do to protect their property: erect seawalls or other barriers, try beach "nourishment" (dumping sand to counteract erosion), or give up entirely and relocate.
To calculate the damages, the researchers took sea-level rise estimates developed by the Pacific Institute last year and applied them to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "stage-damage curves," which estimate property damages at various levels of water.
Damage risks become untenable
The economists are also trying to quantify the value of ecological benefits like protecting endangered species, and even the benefit of a day at the beach.
"I might never go to Madagascar, but the fact that it's there makes me feel good," explained study co-author Aaron McGregor of UCLA.
via www.nytimes.com
Happy: This looks really interesting and related to something I'm working on. I'd like to see what they are doing.
Surprised: There are no links in the blog post to take me to a study website.
Disappointed: So I google "'Aaron McGregor' UCLA" and get nothing that looks like anything official. There is a LinkedIn profile but you're not supposed to bother LinkedIn people if you don't know them.
Irritated: I don't doubt that there is a real study but it shouldn't be so hard to find (i.e., it shouldn't take more than 2 minutes to find someone to contact about it) these days.
(I'll feel) Stupid: If a reader points out some obvious lead that I missed.
