Final Report 

What Will Adaptation Cost? 

An Economic Framework for Coastal 

Community Infrastructure 

June 2013 

Eastern Research Group, Inc. 

Written under contract for the 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 

Coastal Services Center 

NOAA Coastal Services Center 

(843) 740-1200 

www.csc.noaa.gov 
What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table of Contents 

The Importance of Making Economically Informed Decisions....................................................1
 

Chapter 1: Understand Your Baseline Risk .................................................................................4
 

Task 1: Select Appropriate Local Sea Level Rise Scenarios .................................................................... 4
 

Task 2: Develop High-Water-Level Event Scenarios ............................................................................ 10
 

Task 3: Assess Exposed Infrastructure for Your No-Action Scenario .................................................... 13
 

Chapter 2: Assess What You Can Do Differently.......................................................................15
 

Task 1: Select Adaptation Strategies .................................................................................................. 16
 

Task 2: Re-Assess Your Exposed Infrastructure for Your Action Scenarios........................................... 19
 

Chapter 3: Calculate Costs and Benefits ...................................................................................21
 

Task 1: Identify Impacts ..................................................................................................................... 21
 

Task 2: Monetize Impacts .................................................................................................................. 26
 

Task 3: Estimate Costs of Implementing Adaptation Strategies .......................................................... 31
 

Chapter 4: Make a Decision ......................................................................................................33
 

Task 1: Calculate Total Benefits of Each Action Scenario .................................................................... 34
 

Task 2: Calculate the Capital and Maintenance Costs ......................................................................... 40
 

Task 3: Assess Each Action Scenario ................................................................................................... 42
 

Conclusion: Economics is Only One Piece of Informed Decision-making..................................44
 

Appendix A: Adaptation Strategies .......................................................................................A-1
 

Appendix B: Approaches and Tools for Monetizing Impacts ................................................. B-1
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies ....................................................................................... C-1
 

ii 
Table 1.1: Global SLR Scenarios from Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States National
 

Climate Assessment................................................................................................................................. 6
 

Table 1.2: St. Petersburg, Florida SLR Increase Scenarios by Year, Based on the USACE Curves. ............... 7
 

Table 1.3: Global SLR Increase Scenarios by Year Based on the Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the
 

United States National Climate Assessment Curves ................................................................................. 8
 

Table 1.4: Example Local SLR Increase Scenarios by Year Based on the St. Petersburg, Florida tide gauge
 

and the Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment Curves ......... 8
 

Table 1.5: Template for Calculating Local SLR for 2100 ............................................................................ 9
 

Table 1.6: Sample Table of Water-Level Increases by Year (feet)............................................................ 11
 

Table 1.7: Sample Table of Selected Water-Level Increases for the Impact Assessment ......................... 12
 

Table 2.1: How Adaptation Strategies Reduce the Impacts of Coastal Flooding ...................................... 17
 

Table 3.1: List of Impacts from Flooding ................................................................................................ 23
 

Table 3.2: List of Impacts from Implementing Adaptation Strategies...................................................... 25
 

Table 3.3: Sample Table of Monetized Damage for the Impact Assessment ........................................... 27
 

Table 3.4: Sample Table of Monetized Damage for the Risk Assessment................................................ 28
 

Table 3.5: Sample Table of Compiled Monetized Damage for the Impact Assessment............................ 30
 

Table 3.6: Sample Table of Compiled Monetized Damage for the Risk Assessment ................................ 30
 

Table 3.7: Parametric Software.............................................................................................................. 31
 

Table 4.1: Example Table of Total Benefits for the Impact Assessment .................................................. 34
 

Table 4.2: Sample Table of Annual Loss for Select Years for the Risk Assessment ................................... 36
 

Table 4.3: Sample Timeline of Annual Loss for the Risk Assessment ....................................................... 37
 

Table 4.4: Sample Timeline of the Present Value of Total Benefits for the Risk Assessment ................... 38
 

Table 4.5: Sample Timeline of Capital and Maintenance Costs and NPV ................................................. 40
 

Table 4.6: Resources for Choosing a Discount Rate ................................................................................ 41
 

Table 4.7: Sample Net Benefit and Benefit to Cost Calculations for a Risk Assessment ........................... 43
 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

List of Tables 

iii 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

The Importance of Making Economically Informed 

Decisions 

Global sea level has been rising over the past several decades and is expected to continue to rise in the 

decades to come. This shift poses a grave threat to coastal communities. Low-lying areas will experience 

more frequent inundation and shorelines will be more susceptible to increased erosion. Increased storm 

surges are already causing devastating floods. Sooner than most community leaders realize, some areas 

could be submerged so often or eroded so severely that people will be forced to abandon their homes 

and businesses. According to the National Ocean Economics Program, coastal communities account for 

nearly 60 percent of the nation’s gross national product. 1 With so much of our nation’s economy 

increasingly vulnerable to coastal hazards, communities 

need to consider future sea level rise in their decision- “Going forward, I think we do have to 

making. anticipate these extreme types of 

weather. And we have to start to think 

Deciding on the best course of action, about how we redesign [infrastructure] however, is not 

so this doesn’t happen again...I don’t always easy. Issues are complex and there is a lot of think anyone can sit back anymore and 

uncertainty. Community leaders find themselves grappling say ‘Well, I’m shocked at that weather 

with questions like: pattern.’ There is no weather pattern 

that can shock me at this point. And I 

think that has to be our attitude, how • How will sea level rise and increased storm surge do we redesign our system and our affect my community? infrastructure assuming that?” 

—New York Governor Andrew Cuomo • What is the cost of doing nothing? 

responding to Hurricane Sandy 

• What can we do to adapt? 

“As we get more high tides and tides 

•	 How can I determine the best adaptation strategy? seem to get higher, and we get more of 

these storms and they seem to come 

• How much will it cost to keep my community safe? with a little more fury, we get more and 

more water in our city as the days go by. The purpose of this framework is to help communities So we are taking it very seriously ...and 

begin to find answers to these difficult questions. By we are planning for it.” 

understanding the costs and benefits of different —Norfolk, Virginia, Mayor Paul Fraim 

adaptation strategies, decision-makers can make more 

fully informed decisions that are fiscally responsible in the short and long terms. More importantly, 

economically informed decision-making will lead to safer, more responsible, economically sound 

communities. In the long run, the entire community benefits by investing in adaptation efforts: after a 

flood event, utilities will be restored quicker, stores and banks will be open sooner, children will return 

to school faster, and residents will be back at work with minimal disruption. Up-front investments can 

help ensure a successful future. By accounting for the full costs of inundation risks, leaders can make 

strategic choices about where, when, and how to make investments in adaptation responses to 

maximize benefits and minimize risk. 

1 State of the U.S. Ocean and Coastal Economies—2009. 

1 
 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

How to Use This Framework 

This framework guides communities on how to evaluate options for adapting infrastructure to make it 

more resilient, reducing the effects of sea level rise (SLR) and high-water-level events such as storm 

surge or astronomical high tides. As a step-by-step process, it leads communities through a scenariobased approach to understand the full range of costs and benefits. Figure 1 illustrates the framework 

that communities can use to develop and investigate their own unique scenarios. 

Figure 1: Framework for Making Informed Decisions 

This framework is highly adaptable and can help any community make decisions about infrastructure 

investment. Communities can use it to assess the impact of inundation on their entire infrastructure, 

which is referred to as the holistic approach. Alternatively, if a community wants to focus on select 

infrastructure, such as a hospital or wastewater treatment plant, the framework allows for this priority 

infrastructure approach. 

2 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

A significant impetus for developing this framework was the 

growing demand from communities for guidance to help 

protect publicly-owned infrastructure, such as roads, schools, 

and sewer systems. However, the holistic approach includes 

assessing costs and benefits to homes and businesses as well as 

public assets, and the adaptation strategies discussed in 

Chapter 2 and Appendix A can be used to protect both private 

property and public infrastructure. In fact, some of the 

adaptation strategies are traditionally employed to protect 

private, but can be viable options to protect public property as 

well. You can choose to use this framework to perform a more 

focused analysis of public infrastructure, or to take a broader 

look at your entire community. 

“As storms such as Hurricane 

Sandy have shown, it is vital that 

we commit our resources and 

expertise to create a ready and 

resilient Maryland, by taking the 

necessary steps to adapt to the 

rising sea and unpredictable 

weather. In studying and planning 

for storms and climate change, we 

can ensure that our land, 

infrastructure, and most 

importantly our citizens are safe 

and prepared.” 

—Maryland Governor 

Martin O’Malley 

The framework can also help communities perform either an impact assessment or a risk assessment. 

An impact assessment involves assessing the impacts of just a few different water-level increase heights 

to develop a sense of the amount of damage to expect in certain scenarios compared to the financial 

cost of adaptation strategies. A risk assessment is a more resource-intensive analysis that multiplies the 

probability of each water-level increase by the value of the impact to generate an apples-to-apples 

comparison of the expected costs and the expected benefits of implementing adaptation strategies 

against coastal flooding. The details of each type of assessment are discussed in task 2 of the first 

chapter in this guide. 

Finally, we encourage communities to assemble a team to effectively use this framework, as several of 

its steps require specialized expertise or training. Identifying qualified experts and engaging 

stakeholders is an important part of the process. Your team should include economists, planners, GIS 

experts, land use attorneys, civil engineers, and inundation modeling experts if available; it can also 

include utility supervisors and emergency managers. If you do not have the needed expertise in-house 

for all the tasks, seek support from outside resources such as local universities, nonprofit organizations, 

or consultants. We recommend that communities engage other stakeholders and residents to 

participate in the decision process. This guide can also be used to help you craft an effective request for 

proposals to get necessary consultant support. 

Protecting Against Sea Level Rise: New York City 

When hazard planning includes informed decisions, successes can follow. In 2007, New York City began 

working to prepare for the impacts of climate change as part of PlaNYC—a comprehensive planning effort to 

address every aspect of the city’s physical infrastructure. The effort recognized that adapting to SLR must be 

a key part of city policy. Accordingly, New York took action to address the most pressing risks; areas of the 

city were rebuilt, rezoned, and refashioned to better weather those threats. 

When Hurricane Sandy hit the city in October 2012, many of these changes helped prevent property 

damage. Governors Island experienced peak flooding of almost 13 feet above sea level and saw 5 feet of 

water come over the southern seawall, but a 30-acre park there came through the storm nearly untouched 

because its design accounted for hazards like Sandy. The new Brooklyn Bridge Park was also designed with 

the assumption that it would flood—and was open to the public just five days after the storm. 

3 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Chapter 1: Understand Your Baseline Risk 

This chapter helps you understand your community’s baseline risk for coastal 

flooding resulting from high-water-level events and SLR. You will explore the 

exposure of your infrastructure to a range of water-level increases resulting 

from high-water-level events such as storm surge and astronomical high tides 

combined with SLR. The flood maps that you create will serve as a valuable 

tool to illustrate what might happen to your community if no action is taken. 

Case Study: Boston, Massachusetts 

In Boston, researchers used publicly available information from the U.S. Army 

Corps of Engineers and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to 

predict high-water-level event scenarios in 2050. They estimated that a 10-

year storm in 2050 would bring the same height of water as a 100-year storm 

now, because of the compounded effects of SLR. In other words, the impacts 

of a storm that has a 1 percent chance of occurring now would equal those of 

a storm with a 10 percent chance of occurring in 2050. 

Expertise required to complete Chapter 1: 

• GIS analysts to help your team use spatial data in Task 3 

Key resources referenced in Chapter 1 include: 

• NOAA’s Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment 

• USACE Circular “Sea-level Change Considerations for Civil Works Programs” 

• NOAA’s Sea Levels Online 

• NOAA’s Extreme Water Levels map 

• NOAA’s Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding Impacts Viewer 

• NOAA’s Inundation Analysis Tool 

• NOAA’s Mapping Coastal Inundation Primer 

• NOAA’s Coastal LIDAR 

• NOAA's Vertical Data Transformation 

• USGS’ National Elevation Dataset 

• FEMA’s Hazus-MH Flooding Model 

• The New England Environmental Finance Center’s Coastal Adaptation to Sea level Rise Tool 

4
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Task 1: Select Appropriate Local Sea Level Rise Scenarios 

Objective: Use existing global and local projection data to select appropriate local SLR scenarios. 

Process to complete this task: 

Step 1: Identify a set of SLR curves that Key considerations for this task: 

you will use for your analysis. It is possible •	 Are you considering a wide enough range of 

SLR scenarios? A low scenario based on that area researchers have developed historic SLR trends may make sense for short- localized SLR curves based on downscaled term planning, but intermediate or high 

climate models, so you should check with scenarios based on recent science showing 

that SLR is accelerating may be more area universities or the NOAA Regional 

appropriate to consider for longer-term Integrated Sciences and Assessments planning (e.g. when planning for infrastructure 

program closest to your community. For meant to last multiple decades.) 

most locations, however, two recently • Did you project your local SLR scenarios far 

published resources provide global SLR enough into the future? At this point, you have 

not looked at any adaptation strategies and curves that can be used to develop your their expected period of effectiveness. local SLR scenarios. This framework outlines Consider projecting out to 2100 for now; you 

how to use these two resources to generate can shorten this horizon in a later task. 

local SLR scenarios. If you choose to use a 

different set of curves, you will need to apply quadratic equations for those curves to determine 

rates of SLR for different time periods. 

One available resource is U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Sea-level Change Considerations for 

Civil Works Programs, 

2 which presents three SLR curves: the low curve represents the historic or 

baseline rate, and the intermediate and high curves are based on science from the National 

Research Council and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Option A in Step 3 explains 

how to use these curves to generate local SLR projections. 

Another appropriate resource is NOAA’s Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States 

National Climate Assessment. It is a multi-agency report of scientific literature on global SLR. 

Released in December of 2012, it presents four global SLR scenarios and notes the physical changes 

that would need to take place for each SLR scenario to be a reality (see Table 1.1). Options B and C 

in Step 3 of this chapter outline a simplified and more advanced methodology for using these curves 

to generate local SLR projections. 

2 This circular expires in September of 2013 but will likely be replaced by an updated version 

5 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 1.1: Global SLR Scenarios from Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United 

States National Climate Assessment 

SLR Scenario Physical conditions scenario is based on SLR by 2100 (ft)* 

Lowest Based on historical rates of observed sea level change 0.7 

Intermediate-low Based on projected ocean warming 1.6 

Intermediate-high Based on projected ocean warming and recent ice 

sheet loss 3.9 

Highest Based on ocean warming and the maximum plausible 

contribution of ice sheet loss and glacial melting 6.6 

* Using mean sea level in 1992 as a starting point. 

Step 2: Choose a few years along the planning horizon to evaluate local SLR. One approach would 

be every 30 years (2040, 2070, 2100), but there is no ideal planning horizon; timeframes of interest 

will be specific to your community, although you may want to consider performing this step out to 

2100 to observe the effects of SLR over time. This will not limit you to a particular planning horizon 

in performing the cost-benefit analysis. 

Step 3: Calculate local SLR increases for the years you chose, compared to the first year of your 

analysis. This involves incorporating local projection information into the global SLR curves, and 

using quadratic equations to determine the amount of rise for different years along the curves. 

Incorporating local information is necessary because different areas of the country have varying 

amounts of subsidence or uplift, and there are also differences due to ocean basin trends. 

Option A: Use the three USACE curves to generate local SLR scenarios by year 

Use the USACE on-line Sea Level Change Calculator to generate projections in five year increments. If 

you know the rate of subsidence or uplift for your area of coastline, you can enter this value into the 

calculator in millimeters. If you do not know this information, select the NOAA tide gauge closest to your 

location to generate an approximate subsidence rate. The calculator assumes a start date of 2010 for 

calculating values, but you may adjust this if desired. Use the results from the online calculator to fill out 

a table showing SLR rates for the time periods you selected in Step 2. Table 1.2 shows an example of 

what this table might look like, using St. Petersburg, Florida as an example. The values were generated 

using the online calculator by selecting the St. Petersburg tide gauge. 

6 
 

 

 

 

 

 

E(t) = 0.0017t + bt2 (Equation 1.1) 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 1.2: St. Petersburg, Florida SLR Increase Scenarios by Year, Based on the 

USACE Curves. 

SLR Scenario 

Feet Above 1992* Sea Level 

2040 2070 2100 

High 0.93 1.97 5.25 

Intermediate 0.67 1.21 2.93 

Low 0.41 0.62 1.27 

*The on-line Sea Level Change Calculator produces the amount of predicted sea level change from 1992 forward. 

1992 corresponds to the midpoint of the current National Tidal Datum Epoch of 1983-2001. 

Option B: Use the four curves in Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States 

National Climate Assessment to generate local SLR scenarios by year – Simplified 

methodology 

A relatively simple way to adjust the global SLR curves to produce local scenarios is to factor in the 

difference between the global mean sea level trend and the trend in your location, which may be 

greater or lesser than the global rate depending on local vertical land movement (subsidence or uplift) 

and regional ocean basin trends. Use the following steps to generate values for the four scenarios 

(lowest, intermediate-low, intermediate-high, and high.) Again, St. Petersburg, Florida is used as an 

example, and Table 1.4 illustrates the final output. 

1.	 Determine the lowest rate (in/year) of SLR increase using the NOAA Sea Levels Online mean sea 

level trend from the water level gauge closest to your community. Assume this to be a constant 

increase, and use 1992 as the starting point for your calculations; use it to calculate your 

“lowest” projection for the years you chose in the previous step of this process. For St. 

Petersburg, Florida, the mean sea level trend is 2.36 mm/year, which converts to 0.093 in/year. 

The rise for 2040 will be 4.46 in (0.093 in/year x [2040-1992]), for 2070 will be 7.25 in (0.93 

in/year x [2070-1992]), and for 2100 will be 10.04 in [0.093 in/year x [2100-1992]). Insert these 

values in the row for the “lowest” scenario in Table 1.4. (Note that Table 1.4 is in feet so these 

values have been converted from inches to feet.) 

2.	 Use the quadratic equations in Section 4.3 of the Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United 

States National Climate Assessment report (shown in Equation 1.1 below) to calculate global SLR 

associated with the “intermediate-low,” “intermediate-high,” and “highest” SLR scenario for the 

years you have chosen to analyze. An example of calculating these equations is provided below, 

and Table 1.3 provides an example of the values (in feet) for the three time periods of 2040, 

2070, and 2100. 

Future global mean SLR is represented by the following quadratic equation: 

7 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Where: 

t = years, starting in 1992
 

b = constant value of 1.56E-04 for the Highest Scenario, 8.71E-05 for the Intermediate-High Scenario,
 

and 2.71E-05 for the Intermediate-Low Scenario3 

.
 

E(t) = eustatic SLR, in meters, as a function of t.
 

Using the highest scenario in the year 2070 as an example, t equals 78 (i.e. 2070 – 1992), and the
 

equation would be:
 

E(t) = (0.0017 x 78) + [( 1.56 x 10-4) x (782

)] 

This yields a result of 1.08 meters, which converts to 3.54 feet. 

Table 1.3: Global SLR Increase Scenarios by Year Based on the Global Sea Level Rise 

Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment Curves 

Global SLR Scenario 

Feet Above 1992 Sea Level 

2040 2070 2100 

Highest 1.4 3.5 6.6 

Intermediate-high 0.9 2.2 3.9 

Intermediate-low 0.5 1.0 1.6 

3.	 Adjust the global “intermediate-low,” “intermediate-high,” and “highest” values calculated in 

the previous step to account for the difference between your local mean sea level trend and the 

global mean SLR average (0.067 in/year.) For example, St. Petersburg’s local SLR rate of 0.093 

in/year is 0.026 in/year above the global average. So for the year 2040, 1.25 inches need to be 

added to each of the three scenarios ( 0.026 in/year x [2040-1992]). For the year 2070, 2.03 

inches need to be added (0.026 in/year x [2070-1992]), and for the year 2100, 2.81 inches need 

to be added (0.026 in/year x [2100-1992]). Insert the adjusted numbers into the “highest,” 

“intermediate-high,” and “intermediate-low” rows of table 1.4. 

Table 1.4: Example Local SLR Increase Scenarios by Year Based on the St. Petersburg, 

Florida tide gauge and the Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States 

National Climate Assessment Curves 

Local SLR Scenario (St. Feet Above 1992 Sea Level 

Petersburg, FL) 2040 2070 2100 

Highest 1.5 3.7 6.8 

Intermediate-high 1.0 2.4 4.1 

Intermediate-low 0.6 1.2 1.8 

Lowest 0.37 0.60 0.84 

3 Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment (2012) 

8 
 

 

 

 

- -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Option C: Use the four curves in Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States 

National Climate Assessment to generate local SLR scenarios by year – Advanced 

methodology 

For the greatest accuracy, follow the detailed guidance in sections four and five of Global Sea Level Rise 

Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment to calculate local SLR estimates. 

1.	 Use Table 1.5 below as a template to help you generate your estimates for the year 2100. As the

table footnotes indicate, Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States National Climate

Assessment provides more information about developing values for Table 1.5.

Table 1.5: Template for Calculating Local SLR for 2100 

Contributing Variables 

SLR Scenarios 

Lowest 

Scenario 

Intermediate Low 

Scenario 

Intermediate High 

Scenario 

Highest 

Scenario 

Global mean SLR from 1992 to 2100 (ft)* 0.7 1.6 3.9 6.6 

Vertical land movement (subsidence or uplift) 

(ft)** 

Ocean basin trend 

(from tide gauges and satellites) (ft)*** 

Total Relative Sea Level Change (ft) 

* Equations from Section 4.3 of Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment

can be used to calculate scenarios of sea level change over desired period and to populate the global mean 

SLR term in the first row. 

** This row can be populated using, in part, the information found in Sections 5.1 of Global Sea Level Rise 

Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment. 

*** This row can be populated using, in part, the information found in Sections 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 and 5.3 of Global Sea 

Level Rise Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment 

2.	 Once you have generated values for 2100, create additional tables for your selected years

between now and 2100. Use the quadratic equations in Section 4.3 of the Global Sea Level Rise

Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment to complete the top row of each

table. (There are equations for the “intermediate-low,” “intermediate-high,” and “highest”

scenarios; for the “lowest” scenario, multiply the global mean SLR average (0.067 in/year) times

the number of years since 1992.)

3.	 Once you have calculated local SLR for each of your selected time periods, create one final table

with the total relative sea level change for each time period and each of the four SLR scenarios.

This final table would follow the format of Table 1.4 shown above.

9 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Task 2: Develop High-Water-Level Event Scenarios
 

Objective: Review historical data to select a 

range of high-water-level events. Integrate these 

data with SLR scenarios to select several waterlevel height increases that you will use for the 

basis of your risk or impact assessment. 

Process to complete this task: 

Step 1: Using the NOAA Extreme Water 

Levels map, find the “Exceedence Probability 

Curves” for the available city closest to your 

community. Use the bolded curve on the 

graph to determine the water-level increase 

relative to the mean higher high water 

(MHHW) level for any storm intensity from 

the 1-year storm to the 200-year storm. 

Consider selecting at least the 1-year, 2-year, 

10-year, 30-year, 100-year, and 200-year 

storm in developing this initial table. (Note 

that “10-year storm” refers to a storm that is 

projected to occur once every 10 years. That 

is, such a storm has a 10 percent chance of 

occurring in any given year—it could happen 

more than once.) See the first two columns 

of Table 1.6, which show the storm-type and 

present water-level increases, for a sample 

of how this table might look. This table 

presents two SLR scenarios; however, your 

community may choose to examine more or 

fewer scenarios in your analysis. 

Key considerations for this task: 

•	 Did you consider extreme water-level 

increases? Considering that future climate 

change could exacerbate the strength and 

frequency of storms and global mean sea level 

is projected to increase at an accelerated 

pace, it is very important that a community 

develop informed adaptation strategies while 

considering the possibility of catastrophic 

water-level increases. 

•	 Do you have the resources to perform a risk 

assessment? A risk assessment provides an 

apples-to-apples comparison of your costs and 

benefits; however, it requires assessing the 

impacts of significantly more water-level 

increases than an impact assessment. 

What is a 100-year storm? 

A 100-year storm has a 1-in-100—or 1 percent— 

chance of occurring in a given year. This does not 

guarantee that it will occur exactly once every 100 

years, nor does it preclude it from happening twice 

in a year. Here are some example storm types and 

their associated annual probability of occurring: 

•	 200-year storm: 0.005 percent 

•	 100-year storm: 1 percent 

•	 30-year storm: 3.3 percent 

•	 10-year storm: 10 percent 

•	 2-year storm: 50 percent 

10 
 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 1.6: Sample Table of Water-Level Increases by Year (feet) 

Scenario/Year Present* 2040 2070 2100 

Intermediate-Low SLR Scenario (3-Foot Rise by 2100) 

200-year storm 12 13 14 15 

100-year storm 10 11 12 13 

30-year storm 8 9 10 11 

10-year storm 5 6 7 8 

2-year storm 4 5 6 7 

1-year storm 3 4 5 6 

Highest SLR Scenario (6-Foot Rise by 2100) 

200-year storm 12 14 16 18 

100-year storm 10 12 14 16 

30-year storm 8 10 12 14 

10-year storm 5 7 9 11 

2-year storm 4 6 8 10 

1-year storm 3 5 7 9 

* These data are for illustrative purposes only and do not represent any particular exceedance probability 

curve. 

Step 2: Expand your table to include your SLR scenarios from Chapter 1, Task 1. Add all the 

scenarios you developed for your chosen years. Table 1.6 shows what this might look like. The 

integrated water-level increase is the sum (it should be adequate to round to the nearest foot) of 

the water-level increase associated with a certain storm type and the water-level increase in your 

SLR scenario for that given year. 

Step 3: Decide whether to perform an impact assessment or a risk assessment. The steps in 

either case are similar, but vary according to your decision—be sure to pay attention when specific 

steps for your assessment type are called out 

in each task. Risk assessment is significantly 

more resource intensive, but gives you a 

much more informative comparison of your 

costs and benefits. 

When performing an impact assessment, you 

will assess three or four water-level increases 

as they relate to infrastructure. However, 

you could assess over 10 water-level 

What is the difference between a risk 

assessment and an impact assessment? 

An impact assessment calculates the dollar value of 

flooding damage for your selected water-level 

increases. A risk assessment takes the analysis one 

step further by multiplying the probability of each 

water-level increase occurring by the value of the 

impact to yield a direct comparison of expected costs 

and expected benefits. 

11 
 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

increases to adequately perform a risk assessment. An impact assessment could give you enough 

information to assess what combination of events could justify the costs of implementing your 

adaptation strategies. A risk assessment factors in the probability of the storm and will allow you to 

directly compare your expected total costs and benefits, giving you a clearer answer as to whether 

your adaptation strategies are worthwhile. The risk assessment does not factor in the probability of 

an SLR scenario; there are no probabilities associated with each SLR scenario. That is, your 

community will select an SLR scenario as a given assumption, and perform a risk assessment for 

each SLR scenario you choose to assess. If you do choose an impact assessment and (on reaching the 

last chapter of this framework) find that you need more detailed cost and benefit data to make your 

decision, you can always go back and replicate many of these tasks for more water-level increases to 

perform a risk assessment. 

Step 4: Select the water-level increases you will assess for either your impact or risk assessment. 

The specific process you will undertake for each assessment type is outlined below. 

Option A: impact assessment 

Select three or four water-level increases that represent a range of the values in your table. Consider 

choosing a low, medium, high, and perhaps catastrophic water-level increase. A low water-level increase 

may be, for example, an astronomical high tide, a 1-year storm, or SLR only. A catastrophic water-level 

increase may be, for example, the 200-year storm in 2100 under the “highest” SLR scenario or the 

water-level increase associated with the highest surge that has ever been experienced in your region of 

the country—Sandy, Katrina, etc. Create a table showing the selected water-level increases (see Table 

1.7 for an example) and the associated storm type and SLR scenario combinations represented by those 

increases. 

Table 1.7: Sample Table of Selected Water-Level Increases for the Impact Assessment 

Water Height* What Does This Height Represent? 

3 feet Present 1-year storm, intermediate-low SLR-only in 2100, high SLR only around 2055. 

8 feet 30-year storm in present, 10 year-storm in 2100 under intermediate-low SLR scenario or 2055 

under highest SLR scenario, 2-year storm in 2070 under highest SLR scenario, 1-year storm in 

2085 under high SLR scenario. 

12 feet 200-year storm in present, 100-year storm in 2070 under intermediate-low SLR scenario or 

2040 under highest SLR scenario, 30-year storm in 2070 under highest SLR scenario. 

18 feet 200-year storm in 2100 under highest SLR scenario. 

* These data are for illustrative purposes only and do not represent any particular exceedance probability curve. 

Option B: risk assessment 

Choose one or more SLR scenarios for which you will assess every water-level increase in the table. For 

example, for the sample water-level increases in Table 1.6, you will assess water-level increases of 3, 4, 

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 feet if you choose to assess only the intermediate-low scenario. If 

you choose to assess the highest scenario as well, you will also need to select water-level increases of 16 

12 
 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

feet and 18 feet. In many cases, including this sample case, there is only a small increase in the number 

of water-level increases that you will need to assess as you consider more SLR scenarios. 

Task 3: Assess Exposed Infrastructure for Your No-Action 

Scenario 

Objective: Identify at-risk infrastructure and 

land area for each water-level increase. 

Process to complete this task: 

Step 1: Use water-level increases 

developed in the previous task and the 

NOAA Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding 

Impacts Viewer (where available) to make a 

reconnaissance-level assessment of the 

exposed land and infrastructure in your local 

community. Note that this step is not 

necessary to the analysis; when available, 

though, it can provide a useful visual of 

flooding in your community for 1- to 6-foot 

water-level increases. 

Step 2: Determine whether you are 

interested in assessing the impacts to 

specific elements of your infrastructure such 

as a wastewater treatment plant, utility, or 

hospital (the priority infrastructure 

approach), or assessing the impacts to your 

Key considerations for this task: 

•	 Are you interested in assessing the impacts to 

all infrastructure in your community (holistic 

approach), or will you be choosing one or two 

priority infrastructure elements to assess 

(priority infrastructure approach)? 

•	 What is the complexity of your flooding map, 

and what are its limitations? Some are 

simplifications that just consider elevation and 

would show an area flooding even with a 

mountain shielding it from storm surge. 

Others account for this by evaluating how the 

connectivity of adjacent land parcels affect the 

flood waters (e.g., hills that prevent the tide 

from coming further inland. Does your 

modeling account for wave action? 

•	 What is the resolution digital elevation map 

data? This will impact the uncertainty of your 

flood modeling. 

Experts required for this task: 

•	 GIS analysts to help your team use spatial data 

in Step 3. 

•	 Inundation modeling expert, if available, to 

assist with all three steps. 

community as a whole (the holistic approach). Generally, the tasks will be the same for either 

approach; however, certain tools and methodologies in this framework are more tailored toward a 

specific approach. Although the steps in each task will typically be the same either way, be sure to 

note cases in which a task calls out specific steps for your approach type. 

Step 3: Determine the exposure, including the depth of flooding relative to the bottom of your 

infrastructure, for the infrastructure you will be considering in your analysis. While it is not critical to 

performing this step, it is helpful to understand how much of the water-level increase is due to 

permanent inundation from sea-level rise as that will impact your community differently from 

temporary flood from a high-water-level event such as storm surge or astronomical high tides. For 

both the holistic and priority-infrastructure approach, you might find that flooding levels are relative 

to one point of reference, typically MHHW, and the elevation data sets are relative to another point 

of reference, typically North American Vertical Datum. Use NOAA's Vertical Data Transformation 

13 
 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

tool or another method to convert your data to a common reference point if this is the case. This 

step varies for the holistic and priority infrastructure approach. 

Option A: holistic approach 

This step of the process involves creating inundation (flooding) maps and will require GIS or inundation 

mapping experience. See the NOAA Mapping Coastal Inundation Primer for more information about 

different approaches to developing these models, data needs for each approach, and data resources. 

State and local GIS staff members can be a great resource to help you get elevation data and mapping 

tools; also useful are NOAA’s Coastal LIDAR, NOAA’s Digital Elevation Model Discovery Portal, USGS’ 

National Elevation Dataset, USGS’ Center for Lidar Information Coordination and Knowledge (CLICK), and 

the Open Topography portal—among others. Alternatively, consider using comprehensive tools such as 

the FEMA Hazus MH flooding tool and COAST. These tools also require expertise, but they are also 

programmed to monetize (or assign a dollar value to) the damage costs associated with water-level 

increase inputs. You can read more about them in Appendix B. 

Option B: priority infrastructure approach 

You can typically complete this step by determining the elevation of the bottom of your infrastructure 

relative to MHHW using elevation data such as a digital elevation map, and determining the depth of 

flooding associated with each water-level increase relative to MHHW selected in the previous task. For 

example, if your coastal infrastructure is 6 feet above MHHW, and your selected water-level increase is 

14 feet above MHHW, you would assume approximately 8 feet of flooding relative to the base of your 

infrastructure. 

14 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Chapter 2: Assess What You Can Do Differently
 

Once your community understands the severity of your baseline risks from 

coastal flooding, the next step is to explore how to adapt to these risks. In this 

chapter, you will develop action scenarios, which will be composed of one or 

more adaptation strategies to make your community more resilient to coastal 

flooding. You can assess each action scenario to determine how it alters the 

severity of flooding in your community compared to your baseline case. This 

chapter will set the stage for you to apply dollar values to the damage of your 

no-action and action scenarios in order to arm your community with the 

information it needs to make fiscally and socially responsible decisions about 

implementing adaptation strategies. 

Case Study: Hampton Roads, Virginia 

In Hampton Roads, the nation’s 35th largest metropolitan area, the cities of 

Norfolk and Virginia Beach face starkly different decisions in selecting resilient 

infrastructure and adaptation strategies in response to higher anticipated sea 

level rises than any other Atlantic Coast metropolitan area. Norfolk is the 

financial, medical, and cultural center of the region, with a downtown 

waterfront of about 7 miles. Hard infrastructure projects, such as seawalls and 

levees, protect its major downtown assets and will likely be an important 

component of future adaptation. Virginia Beach, however, relies primarily on its tourism industry made 

possible by its miles of white sand beaches. Investments in beach nourishment have countered erosion 

while maintaining the natural aesthetic qualities of the beach. 

Expertise required to complete Chapter 2: 

• GIS analysts to help your team use spatial data in Task 2 

• Land use attorney and planners to help select adaptation strategies in Task 1 

• Civil engineers to help evaluate adaptation strategies in Task 2 

Key resources referenced in Chapter 2 include: 

• Adaptation strategy fact pages in Appendix A of this framework 

• NOAA’s Adapting to Climate Change: A Planning Guide for State Coastal Managers 

• EPA’s Synthesis of Adaptation Options for Coastal Areas 

• UNEP’s Technologies for Climate Change Adaptation 

• UNESCO’s Hazards Awareness and Mitigation in Integrated Coastal Area Management 

• Climate Tech Wiki 

15
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Task 1: Select Adaptation Strategies
 

Objective: Develop action scenarios for flooding 

adaptation strategies. An adaptation strategy is an 

individual measure, such as elevating 

development, that reduces the impacts of 

flooding. An action scenario is a compilation of 

one or more of these strategies. 

Process to complete this task: 

Step 1: Review Table 2.1 to identify 

possible adaptation strategies that could help 

reduce the exposure of infrastructure to 

coastal flooding in your community. Use 

Appendix A, which includes a fact sheet about 

each of the adaptation strategies in Table 2.1, 

to learn more about the cost, effectiveness, 

implementation obstacles, and other 

considerations about each measure. 

Investigate other measures not listed in the 

table that other communities have considered 

Key considerations for this task: 

•	 Do your adaptation strategies directly respond 

to your risks? 

•	 Do your action scenarios range in cost and 

effectiveness? A wide range of scenarios can 

establish the foundation for constructive 

discussions. 

•	 What is the period of effectiveness of your 

adaptation strategies? Many solutions are 

only temporary and need to be combined with 

plans for managed retreat in the future. 

•	 Can a combination of smaller adaptation 

strategies produce results at least as good as a 

more expensive adaptation strategy goal? 

Experts required for this task: 

•	 Land use attorney and planners to help select 

adaptation strategies in Steps 1 and 2. 

or implemented, like moving expensive equipment to higher ground in a hospital or other priority 

infrastructure. While Table 2.1 and Appendix A provide some general, introductory information, 

there are other factors to consider as you select adaptation strategies that include: 

•	 The costs of strategies can vary significantly depending on the unique characteristics of your 

community. 

•	 Non-economic factors such as legal challenges or public outreach needs can increase the 

resources needed to implement a strategy. 

•	 The lifespan and effectiveness of any project will depend on the severity of future events. 

Keep in mind that some of these adaptation strategies may be more geared to an entire community 

and others are more applicable to protecting priority infrastructure. 

Step 2: Based on your list of possible adaptation strategies, develop one or more action 

scenarios. Each action scenario should consist of at least one adaptation strategy; you may want to 

combine strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the action scenario. 

16 
 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 2.1: How Adaptation Strategies Reduce the Impacts of Coastal Flooding 

Adaptation Strategy How This Adaptation Strategy Changes the Impacts of Coastal 

Flooding 

Managed Retreat Policies 

Transfer of development rights (TDR) Encourages future development to be located out of harm’s way. 

Purchase of development rights (PDR) Encourages future development to be located out of harm’s way. 

Rolling easements May discourage future development from being located in harm’s 

way. Can lead to removal of existing development from harm’s way as 

shorelines move inland. 

Fee-simple acquisition (buyout) Prevents new development from being located in harm’s way and/or 

removes development currently in harm’s way. 

Infrastructure relocation Relocates the infrastructure out of harm’s way. 

Tidal Management 

Storm-surge barriers Prevents higher water from traveling through inlets or into estuaries 

up to a certain water-level increase. 

Engineered Barriers 

Levees and dikes Prevents flooding up to a certain water-level increase. 

Sea walls Prevents flooding up to a certain water-level increase. 

Beach nourishment Prevents flooding up to a certain water-level increase. 

Sandbagging Prevents flooding up to a certain water-level increase. 

Infrastructure Modification/Design 

Elevated development Reduces the damage caused by flooding by raising the infrastructure 

above ground level. 

Flood-proofing infrastructure Reduces the damage caused by flooding. 

Floating development Prevents flooding to structure as the development rises with the 

water. 

Floodable development Prevents structural damage up to a certain height. May contain some 

water which can prevent flooding of other assets. 

Movable buildings Allows for relocating the infrastructure out of harm’s way. 

Drainage systems Manages flood water to reduce damage. 

Land Use Policy 

Preservation of open space Prevents future development from being located in harm’s way. 

Preserved open space may also absorb flood water and/or serve as a 

buffer during inundation events. 

Zoning in vulnerable areas Minimizes or prevents future development from being in harm’s way 

or requires future development to be more resilient to flooding. 

17 
 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 2.1: How Adaptation Strategies Reduce the Impacts of Coastal Flooding 

Adaptation Strategy How This Adaptation Strategy Changes the Impacts of Coastal 

Flooding 

Development fees in vulnerable areas Can be used to pay for flood mitigation measures and may encourage 

future development to be located out of harm’s way. 

Green Infrastructure 

Wetlands Absorb water to reduce the overall water-level increase, and dissipate 

wave and storm surge energy. 

Mangroves Reduce the wave power, typically resulting in a smaller storm surge 

and a slightly lower water-level increase. 

Oyster and coral reefs Reduce the wave power, typically resulting in a smaller storm surge 

and a slightly lower water-level increase. 

Living dunes Prevent flooding up to a certain water-level increase. 

Barrier island restoration Reduces the wave power, typically resulting in a smaller storm surge 

and a slightly lower water-level increase. 

18 
 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Task 2: Re-Assess Your Exposed Infrastructure for Your Action 

Scenarios 

Objective: Identify your infrastructure and land 

area at risk for each action scenario. 

Process to complete this task: 

Step 1: Identify how each action scenario
 

changes the coastal flooding impacts for each
 

water-level increase identified in Chapter 1.
 

Determine the impact of each action scenario.
 

For example, does it move your infrastructure
 

out of harm’s way to completely prevent flood
 

damage, reduce the frequency of inundation,
 

prevent flooding up to certain water-levels,
 

make the building more resilient against
 

flooding, or combine some of these 

possibilities? See Table 2.1 and Appendix A for 

more information about how each flooding
 

adaptation strategy reduces the impact of coastal flooding.
 

Step 2: Re-assess the exposure of your infrastructure for each action scenario. This step’s 

complexity will depend on how your action scenario changes the level or impacts of flooding. 

If your action scenario prevents flooding up to a certain water-level increase: 

You will eliminate impacts of flooding for water-level increases up to a certain point; however, once 

that point is exceeded, the flooding impacts will be similar to those in a no-action scenario. For 

example, beach nourishment may prevent flooding completely up to a 5-foot water-level increase; 

for a 10-foot increase, though, the flooding might be the same as in the no-action scenario. This will 

not require GIS modeling beyond what you did in Task 3 of Chapter 1. Rather, you will just need to 

note the water-level increases for which impacts are prevented and those for which impacts will be 

similar to the no-action scenario. 

If your action scenario reduces the severity of flooding for a given water-level increase: 

You will need to determine by how much the level of flooding changes. For example, if a wetland 

restoration project or series of projects reduce a 10-foot water level by 1 foot, create a new GIS 

flood map for 1 foot less of flooding or note that you have 1 foot less of flooding for any priority 

infrastructure. 

Key considerations for this task: 

•	 Does your action scenario move infrastructure 

out of harm’s way, reduce the level of flooding 

for a given water-level increase, or completely 

prevent flooding up to a certain water-level 

increase? The key to re-assessing the change 

in exposure, and ultimately the change in 

impacts, is to understand and make 

assumptions about how your action scenarios 

change coastal flooding and the resulting 

impacts compared to the no-action scenario. 

Experts required for this task: 

•	 GIS analysts to help your team use spatial data 

in Step 2. 

•	 Civil engineers to help assess the effectiveness 

of your action scenario against coastal 

flooding. In Step 1. 

19 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

If your action scenario moves your infrastructure out of harm’s way: 

You will not need to create any new flood maps, since the level of flooding associated with a given 

water-level increase does not change. When you assign dollar values to the impacts in the next step, 

the difference in damage between your no-action and action scenarios will be the avoided damage 

to this relocated infrastructure. 

If your action scenario increases the resilience of your infrastructure: 

You will not need to create a new flood layer. For example, if you flood-proof or elevate your 

infrastructure, the amount of damage to your infrastructure will be reduced for a given level of 

flooding. Though this will not require a new flood map, it will reduce the monetized value of damage 

to that infrastructure for a given level of flooding, so you will have to track which infrastructure 

elements are involved and change the depth-damage curve in Chapter 3. By isolating the changes in 

damage to these particular buildings, you can estimate the avoided costs. 

20 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Chapter 3: Calculate Costs and Benefits 

After determining the exposure of your infrastructure in both no-action and 

action scenarios, you can identify and then monetize—or assign a dollar value 

to—the impacts of coastal flooding on your infrastructure or your community. 

These include direct impacts from coastal flooding as well as impacts, both 

positive and negative, from implementing your adaptation strategies. In 

practice, it will be too resource intensive to monetize or quantify all impacts, 

so you will need to consider some impacts qualitatively to avoid 

underestimating the value of impacts. 

Case Study: Lower Fox River Basin, Wisconsin 

In the Lower Fox River Basin, Resources for the Future estimated flood 

damage with Hazus-MH Flooding Model, a GIS-based model developed for the 

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help local officials and 

emergency planners estimate losses from floods, earthquakes, and 

hurricanes. They modeled baseline flood damage estimates for 10-year, 50-

year, 100-year, and 500-year flood events in terms of total building, content, 

and inventory loss; business interruption loss; the number of moderately 

damaged buildings; truckloads of debris generated; the number of displaced 

households; and agricultural losses—all based on the current land-use 

patterns. The predicted total losses ranged from $47.5 million for a 10-year 

flood event to almost $109 million for a 500-year flood. 

Expertise required to complete Chapter 3: 

• Experienced economists to help you identify and monetize the costs and benefits in Tasks 1 and 2 

• GIS analysts to help your team use spatial data in comprehensive monetization tools in Task 2 

• Engineers to help you estimate the costs of adaptation strategies in Task 3 

Key resources referenced in Chapter 3 include: 

• Monetization approaches in Appendix B of this framework 

• Comprehensive tools including FEMA’s Hazus-MH Flooding Model and the New England 

Environmental Finance Center’s Coastal Adaptation to Sea Level Rise Tool (COAST) 

• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ depth-damage functions 

• Parametric software including RS Means, the RS Means Quick Cost Estimator, the U.S. Cost Success 

Estimator, and the Parametric Cost Engineering System 

21
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Task 1: Identify Impacts 

Objective: Recognize and categorize the potential impacts of coastal flooding on your infrastructure and 

community and the impacts from implementing 

resilient infrastructure options. 

Process to complete this task: 

Step 1: Create a list of primary, secondary, 

and environmental impacts from flooding 

using Table 3.1 for input. Keep in mind that 

impacts will depend on the severity of 

flooding for certain action scenarios, and 

some impacts might not exist at all under 

certain action scenarios or water-level 

increases. However, for the purpose of this 

task, develop a single comprehensive list of all 

impacts that your community might face 

Key considerations for this task: 

•	 Are there additional impacts not included in 

the “Comprehensive Listing of Impacts” tables 

below that are specific to your community? 

•	 Do you have internal team members with basic 

economic understanding to generate a list of 

impacts or will you need an economist to 

review your list? 

Experts required for this task: 

•	 Experienced economists to help you identify 

impacts in Steps 1-3. 

under any flooding scenario. If you are only assessing the impacts on priority infrastructure, create a 

similar list identifying the direct impacts to your infrastructure and resulting secondary impacts. You 

may want to provide a higher level of detail about the impacts such an inventory of specific content 

in the infrastructure damaged or components of the infrastructure that would be affected. 

Step 2: List potential impacts of implementation, both positive and negative, for each adaptation 

strategy identified in your action scenario. See Table 3.2 for input. Make a separate list of impacts 

for each action scenario identified in Chapter 2. This step will be similar for both the priority 

infrastructure and holistic approach. 

Step 3: Brainstorm whether your community needs to consider any other impacts, not listed in 

Tables 3.1 or 3.2. Add these to the two lists you developed. This step will be similar for both the 

priority infrastructure and holistic approach. 

22 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 3.1: List of Impacts from Flooding 

Impact 

Tool or Measurement Methodology FEMA Hazus MH Flooding COAST Overlay Infrastructure-Level Economic Data on Flood- Depth Data Use General Economic and Flood Data to Estimate Primary Damage Non-Market Valuation Methodologies Monetize Business Interruption Loss Benefits Transfer 

Primary Impacts 

Residential building damage* ● ● ● ● ●

Commercial building damage* ● ● ● ● ●

Damage to special facilities such as hazardous waste, 

wastewater treatment plants, landfills, and energy 

utilities* 

● ● ● ● ●

Damage to essential facilities such as hospitals, fire 

stations, and schools* ● ● ● ● ●

Vehicle damage ● ● ●

Building content loss* ● ● ● ●

Road damage ● ●

Bridge damage ● ●

Railway damage ●

Crop loss ● ●

Loss of human life ●

Animal and livestock loss ●

Secondary Impacts 

Business interruption costs* ● ● ●

Debris cleanup ● ●

Emergency response ● ●

Evacuation costs ● ●

School hours loss ● ●

Rental income loss ● ●

Relocation costs ● ● ●

Displaced families ● ● ●

Roadway congestion ● ●

23 
 

 

 

- -

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 3.1: List of Impacts from Flooding 

Tool or Measurement Methodology FEMA Hazus MH Flooding COAST Overlay Infrastructure-Level Economic Data on Flood- Depth Data Use General Economic and Flood Data to Estimate Primary Damage Non-Market Valuation Methodologies Monetize Business Interruption Loss Benefits Transfer 

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

Impact 

Anxiety and discomfort 

Environmental Impacts 

Salinization of freshwater supply 

Parks, campgrounds, and beaches destroyed 

Wastewater intrusion 

Erosion 

Wetlands, mangroves, marshes, and estuaries 

destroyed 

Other ecosystem service related costs 

* Most substantial impacts for a typical community. 

24 
 

- -

 

- -

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 3.2: List of Impacts from Implementing Adaptation Strategies 

Impact 

Tool or Measurement 

Methodology Non-Market Valuation Methodologies

BenefitsTransfer 

Benefits 

Recreation with enhanced water quality 

Property value increase in a protected community 

Enhanced ability to attract new business 

Quality of life (decreased anxiety, increased safety) 

Enhanced aesthetics 

Other ecosystem service related benefits 

Other Costs 

Decreased aesthetics 

Decreased access to a beach or harbor 

Environmental damage from constructing or implementing the 

resilient infrastructure 

Other ecosystem service related costs 

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

25 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Task 2: Monetize Impacts 

Objective: Select tools and approaches to monetize costs and benefits of the impacts identified in Task 1 

of this chapter based on available resources. 

Process to complete this task: 

Step 1: Determine which tools and 

approaches you will use to monetize your list 

of impacts. Review Tables 3.1 and 3.2 from 

the previous task to see the type of impacts 

each tool or approach can monetize. Review 

Appendix B, which includes more detailed 

information about all of the tools and 

approaches, to learn more about the 

approach, including a description, general 

process for performing it, level of effort 

needed, expertise needed, and important 

resources. Keep in mind that Appendix B does 

not list all possible monetization 

approaches—consult your economic expert 

for more suggestions. As for many of the 

comprehensive tools and monetization 

approaches, you can monetize many primary 

impacts by answering three questions. 

•	 How high is the water for each flooding 

scenario? 

•	 How badly will the water damage your 

priority assets? 

•	 How much is the asset worth? 

While comprehensive tools often rely on more 

generic data, they can be quite useful when 

performing the holistic approach and 

Key considerations for this task: 

•	 Will you be able to monetize the most 

significant impacts? These typically include 

damage to priority infrastructure, buildings, 

and building contents, and sometimes 

business or utility interruption. 

•	 Does it make sense for your community to use 

a comprehensive monetization tool —such as 

COAST or FEMA Hazus-MH Flooding—when 

performing this task? These are resource 

intensive but are sometimes your best option 

when performing the holistic approach. 

•	 Can you monetize the impacts on your priority 

infrastructure without using comprehensive 

tools? Priority infrastructure can be unique, 

and you will generate more accurate damage 

estimates by leveraging site-specific data than 

relying on comprehensive monetization tools 

that may rely on more generic data. 

•	 Is it possible to quantify any of the impacts 

that you cannot monetize? Doing so will 

provide more insight than just considering 

qualitatively. 

Experts required for this task: 

•	 Experienced economists to help you monetize 

the costs and benefits in Steps 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. 

•	 GIS analysts to help your team use spatial data 

in comprehensive monetization tools in Step 

4. 

monetizing damage on a large number of infrastructure. However, when you are monetizing 

damage for priority infrastructure, you should use as much site-specific information as possible. 

Step 2: List the tool or approach you will use to monetize or quantify each impact you listed in 

Task 1 of the chapter. Otherwise, note that you will only consider that impact qualitatively. 

26 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Step 3: From the list of primary, secondary, and environmental impacts you plan to monetize or 

quantify, create tables that show which impacts are applicable at each water-level increase for your 

no-action scenario as well as each action scenario. This will help you focus on the impacts you need 

to monetize or quantify at each water-level increase. The contents of these tables will depend 

somewhat on whether you are performing the impact or risk assessment. The impact assessment 

approach involves creating one table with a column for each action scenario, whereas the risk 

assessment approach involves creating a separate table for each action scenario, including the no 

action scenario for each SLR scenario selected, so that you can assess costs for the different storm 

types and years selected in Chapter 1. If you performed an impact assessment as part of Chapter 1 

Task 2, continue to use Option A. If you elected to perform a risk assessment, continue to follow 

Option B of this task. 

Option A: impact assessment 

Create a table listing the impacts due to coastal flooding that you plan to quantify or monetize. List the 

primary, secondary, and environmental impacts that are applicable at each water-level increase for the 

no-action and each action scenario. Table 3.3 shows how this table can look, however you will input 

monetized cost data in the next step. Keep in mind that many impacts may only be applicable for higher 

water-level increases or in a no-action scenario. For example, an action scenario that implements 

engineered barriers may eliminate impacts at certain water-level increases. If you are following the 

priority infrastructure approach, you may want to provide more detailed site-specific information than is 

shown in Table 3.3 such as the specific content in the infrastructure damaged or components of the 

infrastructure that would be affected at each water-level increase. 

Table 3.3: Sample Table of Monetized Damage for the Impact Assessment 

Water-Level 

Increase 

No-Action Scenario 

Damage ($million)* 

Action Scenario 1 

Damage ($million) 

Action Scenario 2 

Damage ($million) 

3 feet PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $50 

Commercial: $30 

Public Infrastructure: $15 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: $5 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: None 

Commercial: None 

Public Infrastructure: None 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: None 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $25 

Commercial: $15 

Public Infrastructure: $7 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: $3 

8 feet PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $500 

Commercial: $300 

Public Infrastructure: $150 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: $50 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: None 

Commercial: None 

Public Infrastructure: None 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: None 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $250 

Commercial: $150 

Public Infrastructure: $75 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: $25 

12 feet PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $2,000 

Commercial: $1,200 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: None 

Commercial: None 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $1,000 

Commercial: $600 

27 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 3.3: Sample Table of Monetized Damage for the Impact Assessment 

Water-Level 

Increase 

No-Action Scenario 

Damage ($million)* 

Action Scenario 1 

Damage ($million) 

Action Scenario 2 

Damage ($million) 

Public Infrastructure: $600 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: $200 

Public Infrastructure: None 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: None 

Public Infrastructure: $300 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: $100 

18 feet PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $8,000 

Commercial: $4,800 

Public Infrastructure: $2,400 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: $800 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $8,000 

Commercial: $4,800 

Public Infrastructure: $2,400 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: $800 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $4,000 

Commercial: $2,400 

Public Infrastructure: $1,200 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: $400 

*This is a simplified table for illustrative purposes and does not include all impacts such as environmental impacts. 

It is recommended to monetize as many impacts in your table as possible from Tables 3.1 and 3.2. 

Option B: risk assessment 

Create tables, one for the no-action scenario and one for each action scenario for each SLR scenario 

selected, for the impacts due to coastal flooding that you plan to quantify or monetize. List the primary, 

secondary, and environmental impacts that are applicable to each storm type and year you selected in 

Task 2 of Chapter 1. At this point, you may want to modify the years if you choose to change the 

timeframe of your analysis. You will need a separate set of tables for each SLR scenario you selected. 

Table 3.4 shows how one table might look for a sample no-action scenario (though at this step you 

would not yet have included monetized cost data, which is added in the next steps). Keep in mind that 

many impacts may only be applicable at higher levels of inundation or in a no-action scenario. For 

example, an action scenario that implements engineered barriers may eliminate impacts at certain 

water-level increases. If you are following the priority infrastructure approach, you can provide more 

detailed site-specific information than is shown in Table 3.3. For example, consider including the specific 

content of the infrastructure damaged or components of the infrastructure that would be affected at 

each water-level increase. 

Table 3.4: Sample Table of Monetized Damage for the Risk Assessment 

Storm 

Type 

2010 Damage 

($million)* 

2040 Damage 

($million) 

2070 Damage 

($million) 

2100 Damage 

($million) 

1-year 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $75 

Public Infrastructure: 

$20 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$5 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $90 

Public Infrastructure: 

$25 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$5 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $120 

Public Infrastructure: 

$22 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$8 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $150 

Public Infrastructure: 

$40 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$10 

28 
 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 3.4: Sample Table of Monetized Damage for the Risk Assessment 

Storm 

Type 

2010 Damage 

($million)* 

2040 Damage 

($million) 

2070 Damage 

($million) 

2100 Damage 

($million) 

2-year 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $150 

Public Infrastructure: 

$40 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$10 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $200 

Public Infrastructure: 

$135 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$15 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $350 

Public Infrastructure: 

$200 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$50 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $750 

Public Infrastructure: 

$200 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$50 

10-year 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $750 

Public Infrastructure: 

$200 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$50 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $950 

Public Infrastructure: 

$300 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$50 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $1,200 

Public Infrastructure: 

$400 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$100 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $1,875 

Public Infrastructure: 

$500 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$125 

30-year 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $1,875 

Public Infrastructure: 

$500 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$125 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $2,200 

Public Infrastructure: 

$1,100 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$200 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $3,200 

Public Infrastructure: 

$1,500 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$300 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $7,500 

Public Infrastructure: 

$2,000 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$500 

100-

year 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $7,500 

Public Infrastructure: 

$2,000 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$500 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $15,000 

Public Infrastructure: 

$4,000 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$1,000 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $22,000 

Public Infrastructure: 

$11,000 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$2,000 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $38,000 

Public Infrastructure: 

$18,000 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$4,000 

200-

year 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $32,000 

Public Infrastructure: 

$15,000 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$3,000 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $48,000 

Public Infrastructure: 

$22,000 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$6,000 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $70,000 

Public Infrastructure: 

$35,000 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$10,000 

PRIMARY DAMAGE 

Residential: $100,000 

Public Infrastructure: 

$60,000 

SECONDARY DAMAGE 

Business interruption: 

$12,000 

*This is a simplified table for illustrative purposes and does not include all damage such as damage from 

environmental impacts. It is recommended to monetize as many impacts in your table as possible from Tables 3.1 

and 3.2. 

29 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Step 4: Perform the monetization or quantification, and list the monetized or quantified value 

next to the impacts in the table(s) you created in the previous step of this process. 

Step 5: Create a table similar to Table 3.5 or 3.6 that compiles the total of all your monetized 

impacts. This table’s contents will depend on whether you are performing the impact or risk 

assessment. 

Option A: impact assessment 

Sum the total of all monetized damage for each water-level increase for the no-action scenario and 

each action scenario. Table 3.5 provides an example, showing how costs from Table 3.3 were 

compiled. 

Table 3.5: Sample Table of Compiled Monetized Damage for the Impact Assessment 

Water-Level Increase No-Action Scenario 

Damage ($million) 

Action Scenario 1 

Damage ($million) 

Action Scenario 2 

Damage ($million) 

3 feet $100 $0 $50 

8 feet $1,000 $0 $500 

12 feet $4,000 $0 $2,000 

18 feet $16,000 $16,000 $8,000 

Option B: risk assessment 

Sum the total of all monetized damage for each storm type at each year. Create one table for each 

table developed in the previous step of this process; include a column for the annual probability of 

each storm type. For example, the 2-year storm occurs on average once every 2 years, so its annual 

probability is 0.5. Table 3.6 provides an example, showing how costs from Table 3.4 were compiled 

for a sample no-action scenario. 

Table 3.6: Sample Table of Compiled Monetized Damage for the Risk Assessment 

Storm 

Type 

Annual 

Probability 

2010 Damage 

($million) 

2040 Damage 

($million) 

2070 Damage 

($million) 

2100 Damage 

($million) 

1-year 1 $100 $120 $150 $200 

2-year 0.5 $200 $350 $600 $1,000 

10-year 0.1 $1,000 $1,300 $1,750 $2,500 

30-year 0.033 $2,500 $3,500 $5,500 $10,000 

100-year 0.01 $10,000 $20,000 $35,000 $60,000 

200-year 0.005 $50,000 $76,000 $115,000 $172,000 

30 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Step 6: Monetize or quantify all of the benefits and other costs that you can from the list you 

created in Task 1, Step 2 of this chapter. These are typically independent of the water-level increase. 

You will probably just need to do this once for each benefit or other cost within each action 

scenario. 

Task 3: Estimate Costs of Implementing Adaptation Strategies 

Objective: Identify and estimate all capital and 

maintenance costs of Key considerations for this task: implementing the 

• Can you find cost data from other similar adaptation strategies in your action scenario. adaptation projects? This can be an easy way to 

do a preliminary analysis of your best action Process to complete this task: scenarios. If you decide that an action scenario 

is a top candidate to implement, consider Step 1: Get existing cost data about getting a more precise estimate from an
 

similar projects in your community or other architecture or engineering firm.
 

communities. You may be able to find this
 Experts required for this task: information by reviewing Appendix A for • Engineers to help you estimate the costs of 

your adaptation strategy, performing adaptation strategies in Step 2. 

Internet searches for case studies, or asking
 

other community leaders about their projects.
 

Step 2: Develop estimates for the capital costs, maintenance costs, and timing of each 

maintenance cost for each adaptation strategy within each action scenario using existing data and 

parametric software, or by consulting an architectural or engineering firm. Keep in mind that some 

capital costs will be incurred in the near future and others will not be incurred until later in the 

planning horizon. Try to get specification details and information about the useful life of each 

measure. Do not overlook planning costs in the initial capital costs or administrative costs in the 

maintenance costs. 

Table 3.7: Parametric Software 

Software Overview 

RS Means Used for high-level “assembly” costs, as well as more detailed estimates for individual building 

systems and components. 

Level of technical expertise needed: An engineering background and training with this software. 

Availability: Check with your local planning public works engineering offices.* 

Cost: $100 to $1,000. 

RS Means 

Quick Cost 

Estimator 

Online database providing planning-level costs based on building type, square footage, and location; 

however, it may only apply to limited building-related adaptation strategies. 

Level of technical expertise needed: It is a basic online system that requires simple entry of building 

type, square footage, and location. 

Availability: Online. 

Cost: Free. 

31 
 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 3.7: Parametric Software 

Software Overview 

U.S. Cost 

Success 

Estimator 

Performs detailed bottom-up analyses. Provides the ability to integrate with commonly used design 

tools and draw from multiple cost databases. 

Level of technical expertise needed: An engineering background and training with this software. 

Availability: Check with your local planning or public works engineering offices. 

Cost: $4,295. 

Parametric 

Cost 

Engineering 

System 

Prepares parametric cost estimates for new facility construction, renovation, and life cycle cost 

analysis using pre-engineered model parameters and construction criteria. 

Level of technical expertise needed: An engineering background and training with this software. 

Availability: Check with your local planning or public works engineering offices. 

Cost: $850 for federal government users; $3,000 all other users. 

* If your local community does not have a public works engineering office or another local planning office with 

someone trained to use one of these parametric software programs, it can be quite resource intensive to invest in 

training, and it may be worthwhile to consult an engineering firm. 

32 
 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Chapter 4: Make a Decision 

Now you will compile the monetized, quantitative, and qualitative data you 

developed in the previous chapter and decide whether your action scenario 

makes financial sense—whether the benefits outweigh the costs. If you 

prepared multiple action scenarios, more than one of them might make 

financial sense; in that case, you will want to find the best option for your 

community based on the cost-benefit results, financial feasibility, and other 

relevant considerations. 

Case Study: Old Orchard Beach, Maine 

Old Orchard Beach, a popular summer beach destination in southern Maine, 

assessed three action scenarios for dealing with increased coastal flooding 

due to SLR: taking no action, nourishing the beach within the 100-year 

floodplain, and nourishing the beach within the 50-year floodplain. The city 

reviewed each scenario under high, low, and no SLR conditions, concluding 

that the robust decision was to nourish the beach within the 100-year 

floodplain. With no SLR, the city predicted that this action would have only 

slightly higher costs than the 50-year nourishment strategy; with low or high 

SLR, they predicted lower damage and costs. They also found that taking no 

action would result in higher costs under all SLR conditions. 

Expertise required to complete Chapter 4: 

• Experienced economists to help you determine a discount rate in Task 2 and interpret your results in 

Task 3 

Key resources referenced in Chapter 4 include: 

• Discount rate guidance: Office of Management and Budget’s Circular A-4, “Regulatory Analysis” 

• Discount rate guidance: EPA’s Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses, Chapter 6 

33
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Task 1: Calculate Total Benefits of Each Action Scenario 

Objective: Calculate the total benefits of each action scenario for each high-water-level event using 

damage and other costs and benefits monetized in Chapter 3. 

Process to complete this task: Key considerations for this task: 

The steps in this process are different for the 

impact and risk assessment. If you performed an • What discount rate will you choose if you are 

impact assessment as part of Chapter 1 Task 2, performing the risk assessment? 

continue to use Option A. If you performed a risk • Would it be helpful to your discussion to choose assessment, continue to follow Option B of this multiple discount rates? 

task. 

Option A: impact assessment 

Step 1: Create a table that lists total benefits by water-level increase for each action scenario, 

similar to the example shown in Table 4.1, which shows the total benefits of just one action 

scenario. The rows for this table will correspond to the water-level increases you chose to assess in 

Chapter 1. Steps 2 to 4 below explain more about where to gather data and how to make the 

calculations for this table. 

Table 4.1: Example Table of Total Benefits for the Impact Assessment 

Water-Level 

Increase 

No-Action 

Scenario Damage 

($million) 

Action Scenario 

1 Damage 

($million) 

Action Scenario 1 

Other Monetized 

Benefits 

($million) 

Action Scenario 

1 Other Costs 

($million) 

Action Scenario 1 

Total Monetized 

Benefits 

($million) 

3 feet $100 $50 $25 $5 $70 

8 feet $1,000 $500 $25 $5 $520 

12 feet $4,000 $2,000 $25 $5 $2,020 

18 feet $16,000 $8,000 $25 $5 $8,020 

Step 2: Add monetized damage of inundation for no-action and action scenario(s) from Step 5 of 

Task 2 in Chapter 3 to this table. 

Step 3: Add other costs and benefits data for each action scenario from Step 6 of Task 2 in 

Chapter 3 to this table. These other costs and benefits are typically the same across water-level 

increases. As discussed in Chapter 3, they can often be quite difficult to assign a dollar value to—you 

may need to just consider them qualitatively, in which case you would put $0 into the appropriate 

fields of this table but footnote the qualitative costs and benefits. 

34 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Step 4: Calculate the total benefits for each water-level increase using Equation 4.1 and add to 

your table: 

BenT = ICNA – ICA + BenA – OCA (Equation 4.1) 

$8,020 (million) = $16,000 – $8,000 + $25 – $5 

(sample data from Table 4.1 at an 18-foot water-level increase) 

Where: 

BenT = total benefits 

ICNA = no-action scenario damage 

ICA = action scenario damage 

BenA = action scenario benefits 

OCA = other monetized action scenario other costs 

In many cases, your benefits and other costs 

may just be qualitative or quantitative, and 

your monetized total benefits will simply be 

calculated from avoided costs: the difference 

in the losses from flooding associated with 

no-action and those associated with your 

action scenario. Non-monetized benefits 

should be described and, to whatever extent 

possible, quantified. These benefits should be 

considered in the final plan selection, as 

shown in Table 4.7 below. 

Option B: risk assessment 

Step 1: Create tables of the average and 

Qualitative and Quantitative Benefits 

Qualitative benefits are simply a description of the 

benefit. These should always be considered in 

decision making as they can be substantial, but it 

can often be difficult to weigh them against 

Monetized costs, which have been assigned dollar 

value. Quantitative benefits provide additional 

information by assigning a non-monetary value to 

the benefit such as number of fishing days 

enhanced by improved water quality. When it is not 

possible to monetize benefits, you should at least 

try to quantify them as it provides further 

information beyond a qualitative description for 

making informed cost-benefit decisions. 

expected damage for select years, similar to the example shown in Table 4.2, which shows damage 

for the sample no-action scenario. The equations in subsequent steps show how to calculate the 

values for the tables. Average damage provides an average across storms of varying severity, and 

expected damages factors in the probability of those different storms occurring. Create one table 

under each SLR scenario for the no-action scenario and each action scenario. Calculations for this 

table are shown in Steps 2 to 4 below. 

35 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 4.2: Sample Table of Annual Loss for Select Years for the Risk Assessment 

Year 2010 2040 2070 2100 

Storm Type Annual 

Probability 

Average 

Damage 

($billion) 

Expected 

Damage 

($billion) 

Average 

Damage 

($billion) 

Expected 

Damage 

($billion) 

Average 

Damage 

($billion) 

Expected 

Damage 

($billion) 

Average 

Damage 

($billion) 

Expected 

Damage 

($billion) 

1- to 2-year 0.5 0.15 0.08 0.24 0.12 0.38 0.19 0.60 0.30 

2- to 10-

year 0.4 0.60 0.24 0.83 0.33 1.18 0.47 1.75 0.70 

10- to 30-

year 0.067 1.75 0.12 2.40 0.16 3.63 0.24 6.25 0.42 

30- to 100-

year 0.023 6.25 0.15 11.75 0.27 20.25 0.47 35.00 0.82 

100- to 200-

year 0.005 35.00 0.15 48.00 0.24 75.00 0.38 116.00 0.58 

Beyond 

200-year 0.005 50.00 0.25 76.00 0.38 115.00 0.58 172.00 0.86 

Expected Annual Loss 

($billion) 0.98 1.50 2.32 3.67 

Step 2: Calculate the annual probability of consecutive storm types for each year in your table 

using Equation 4.2, and add these data to your table. For the biggest storm type, the annual 

probability is just the probability of that storm type. This is the second column of Table 4.2. 

APXY = APX – APY (Equation 4.2) 

0.4 = 0.5 – 0.1 

(sample data from Table 4.2 for the annual probability of a 2- to 10-year storm) 

Where: 

X and Y = different storm types, for example, a 1-year and 2-year storm 

APXY = annual probability of storm type X to storm type Y 

APX = annual probability of storm type X 

APY = annual probability of storm type Y 

Step 3: Calculate the average damage of consecutive storm types for each year in your table 

using Equation 4.3, and add these data to your table. For the biggest storm type, the average 

damage is just the monetized damage for that storm type from Step 5 of Task 2 in Chapter 3. These 

data are calculated for four different years in Table 4.2. 

ADXYN = (MDXN + MDYN) ÷ 2 (Equation 4.3) 

36 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

$0.83 (billion) = ($0.35 + $1.30) ÷ 2 

(sample data from Table 3.6 for 2- to 10-year storm in 2040) 

Where: 

ADXYN = average damage of storm type X to storm type Y at year N
 

N = year
 

MDXN = monetized damage of storm type X at year N
 

MDYN = monetized damage of storm type Y at year N
 

Step 4: Calculate the expected damage of consecutive storm types for each year in your table 

using Equation 4.4, and add these data to your table. These data are calculated for four different 

years in Table 4.2. 

EDXYN = ADXYN × APXY (Equation 4.4) 

$0.33 (billion) = $0.83 x 0.4 

(sample data from Table 4.2 for 2- to 10-year storm in 2040) 

Where: 

EDXYN = expected damage of storm type X to storm type Y at year N
 

APXY = annual probability of storm type X to storm type Y
 

ADXYN = average damage of storm type X to storm type Y at year N
 

Step 5: Calculate the expected annual loss across all storm types for each year by summing the 

expected damage for all storm types in your table for that given year. This is shown in the bottom 

row of Table 4.2. 

Step 6: Create timelines showing the expected annual loss for each year, as shown in Table 4.3, 

which shows a timeline for the sample no-action scenario. Create one timeline for each table 

developed in Step 2 of this process. Create columns at annual increments, beginning with the first 

year for which you calculated losses and ending at the last year of your assessment. Steps 7 and 8 

explain more about completing this timeline. 

Table 4.3: Sample Timeline of Annual Loss for the Risk Assessment 

Year 2010 2011 2039 2040 2069 2070 2099 2100 

Expected Annual Loss ($billion) 0.98 0.99 1.48 1.50 2.29 2.32 3.63 3.67 

Note: The years in this table should continue uninterrupted from the first year of the analysis until the final year. 

37 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Step 7: Input the expected annual losses from Step 5 directly into your timeline. In the example 

provided in Table 4.2, this includes data from 2010, 2040, 2070, and 2100. 

Step 8: Calculate the values for each year between the selected years from Step 6. Assume that 

the losses increase or decrease linearly between select years. For example, in Table 4.3 the damage 

is $1.50 billion in 2040 and $2.32 billion in 2070, and the average annual increase over that 30-year 

window is $0.027 billion. Thus, the annual loss is assumed to increase by $0.027 billion starting in 

2040 until 2070. 

Step 9: If the benefits or other costs are monetized and differ from select year to select year, in 

the absence of a methodology that better estimates the monetized values for the years between 

your estimates, repeat Steps 7 and 8 above to create timelines for the value of benefits or other 

costs. 

Step 10: Compile data from your timelines in the preceding steps to create a comprehensive 

timeline (as illustrated in Table 4.4 for one action scenario) showing annual total benefits, present 

value of annual total benefits, and net present value (NPV) of total benefits. Create one timeline for 

each action scenario under each SLR scenario. You can choose to include one or multiple discount 

rates. Steps 11 to 13 provide more information about where to get data and how to make 

calculations for this table. 

Table 4.4: Sample Timeline of the Present Value of Total Benefits for the Risk 

Assessment 

Year 2010 2011 2039 2040 2069 2070 2099 2100 

Expected Annual Loss (No 

Action) ($billion) 0.98 0.99 1.48 1.50 2.29 2.32 3.63 3.67 

Expected Annual Loss 

(Action Scenario 1) 

($billion) 

0.33 0.33 0.49 0.50 0.76 0.77 1.21 1.22 

Action Scenario Annual 

Benefits ($billion) 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 

Action Scenario Other 

Costs ($billion) 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 

Annual Total Benefits 

($billion) 0.68 0.69 1.02 1.03 1.56 1.58 2.45 2.48 NPV 

Present Value of Total 

Benefits (3 Percent 

Discount Rate) ($billion) 

0.68 0.67 0.43 0.42 0.27 0.27 0.18 0.17 33.95 

Present Value of Total 

Benefits (No Discounting) 

($billion) 

0.68 0.69 1.02 1.03 1.56 1.58 2.45 2.48 127.26 

38 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Note: The years in this table should continue uninterrupted from the first year of the analysis until the final year. 

Step 11: Pull expected annual loss data for both your no-action and action scenario created in 

Steps 6 through 8, as well as annual benefits and other cost data created in Step 9, into your 

comprehensive timeline. Refer to the first four rows of Table 4.4. 

Step 12: Calculate annual total benefits for each year using Equation 4.5, and add these data to 

your table. In Table 4.4, these data correspond to the fifth row below the header. 

BenTN = ICNA-N – ICAN + BenAN – OCAN (Equation 4.5) 

$0.69 (billion) = $0.99 – $0.33 + $0.05 – $0.02 

(sample data from Table 4.4 for 2011 total benefits) 

Where: 

BenTN = total benefits at year N
 

ICNA-N = no-action scenario damage at year N
 

ICAN = action scenario damage at year N
 

BenAN = action scenario benefits at year N
 

OCAN = action scenario other costs at year N
 

Step 13: Calculate the present value of total benefits for each year using Equation 4.6, and add 

these data to your table. You can make this calculation for one or more discount rates. In Table 4.4, 

these data correspond to the bottom two rows. 

BenPVND = BenTN / (1 + D)(N-Y0) (Equation 4.6) 

$0.27 (billion) = $1.58 / (1 + 0.03)(2070-2010)
 

(sample data from Table 4.4 for 2070 net present value of total benefits)
 

Where: 

Discounting Future Dollars—The “Discount Rate” 

BenPVND = present value of benefits 

• Dollar values associated with future costs and benefits are at year N for discount 

typically discounted, because a dollar received today is rate D considered more valuable than one received in the future. 

BenTN = total benefits at year N This allows dollar values associated with long-term costs 

D = discount rate and benefits to be compared equally against the values of 

short-term costs and benefits. N = year you are assessing in 

• The discount rate is the rate at which society as a whole is the table 

willing to trade present for future benefits, and it helps to Y0 = current year account for inflation and other factors. However, 

determining the discount rate can be a source of 

controversy, and as shown in Table 4.4, it can significantly 

affect the analysis. Therefore, it would be helpful to consult 

an economic expert before selecting a discount rate. 

39
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Step 14: Calculate NPV of total benefits at each discount rate chosen. See Table 4.6 for 

resources about choosing a discount rate. The NPV is simply the sum of the present value of benefits 

for a given discount rate across all years. In Table 4.4, these data correspond to the bottom two 

rows in the last column. 

Task 2: Calculate the Capital and Maintenance Costs 

Objective: Determine the NPV of total costs for 

each action scenario using cost data from Task 3 

of Chapter 3. 

Process to complete this task: 

Step 1: Create a timeline outlining the 

capital and maintenance costs using data 

outputs from Task 3 in Chapter 3 for each 

adaptation strategy within each of your action 

scenarios. Table 4.5 shows what this timeline 

Key considerations for this task: 

•	 What discount rate will you choose if you are 

performing the risk assessment? 

•	 Would it be helpful to your discussion to choose 

multiple discount rates? 

Experts required for this task: 

•	 Economists to help you determine a discount 

rate in Step 4. 

might look like for a given action scenario. Create one table for each action scenario. Add a row for 

each adaptation strategy within an action scenario, as well as rows for total costs, present value of 

total costs, and NPV of total costs. The column headers will include capital costs and maintenance 

costs for any year in which you expect maintenance to be performed for any adaptation strategy. 

Steps 2 to 6 provide further information about where to get data and how to make calculations for 

this table. 

Table 4.5: Sample Timeline of Capital and Maintenance Costs and NPV 

Cost Type 

Capital 

($million) 

Maintenance 

($million) 

Maintenance 

($million) 

Maintenance 

($million) 

Maintenance 

($million) 

Maintenance 

($million) 

Year 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 

Adaptation Strategy 1 $180 $175 $175 $175 $175 $175 

Adaptation Strategy 2 $3,000 $17 $17 $17 $17 $17 

Adaptation Strategy 3 $7,000 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 

Total cost for Action 

Scenario 1 

$10,180 $192 $192 $192 $192 $192 

Present value of total 

costs* 

$10,180 $143 $106 $79 $59 $44 

NPV of Total Costs 

($million) $10,611 

* Assumes a 3 percent discount rate. 

40 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Step 2: Add capital and maintenance cost information to this table from your outputs in Task 3 in 

Chapter 3. 

Step 3: Calculate the total capital and maintenance cost for each year in your table by summing 

these costs across all adaptation strategies within a given year. 

Step 4: Choose a discount rate or multiple discount rates in order to calculate the present value 

of these costs. Consult your economic expert and Table 4.6 below. 

Table 4.6: Resources for Choosing a Discount Rate 

Resource Key Information 

State agencies Some states have guidance on using discount rates and may have 

adopted rates to use for performing cost-benefit analyses. 

Office of Management and Budget’s 

Circular A-4, “Regulatory Analysis” 

Provides information on using discount rates in cost-benefit 

analyses, including rationale for using discount rates, considerations 

about intergenerational discounting, and a recommendation to at 

least consider 3 percent and 7 percent discount rates. 

EPA’s Guidelines for Preparing Economic 

Analyses, Chapter 6 

Provides information on using discount rates in cost-benefit 

analyses, including an overview of discounting, information about 

NPV, issues in applying discount rates, and recommended 

approaches. 

Step 5: Calculate the present value of capital and maintenance costs at each year using Equation 

4.7, and add these data to your table. This equation applies to both future maintenance and future 

capital costs. You can perform this calculation for one or more discount rates. In Table 4.4, these 

data correspond to the bottom two rows. 

CostPVND = CostTN / (1 + D)(N-Y0) (Equation 4.7) 

$106 (million) = ($175 + $17 +$0) / (1 + 0.03)(2030-2010) 

(sample data from Table 4.5 for maintenance costs in 2030) 

Where: 

COSTPVND = present value of costs at year N for discount rate D
 

CostTN = total costs at year N (from step 3)
 

D = discount rate
 

N = year you are assessing in the table
 

Y0 = current year
 

41 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Step 6: Calculate NPV of total capital and maintenance costs at each discount rate selected. This 

is simply the sum of the present value of costs for a given discount rate across all years. In Table 4.5, 

this value is in the bottom row. 

Task 3: Assess Each Action Scenario 

Objective: Identify the action scenarios, if any, 

whose total benefits exceed total costs—both 

monetized and qualitative. Rank these based on 

the cost-benefit results, financial feasibility, and 

any other considerations you might have. 

Process to complete this task: 

Step 1: Assess the monetized cost-benefit 

results of each action scenario. This step 

differs slightly for the risk and impact 

assessments. 

Option A: impact assessment 

Compare the NPV of total costs calculated in Task 

2 of this chapter to the total benefits of each 

action scenario calculated in Task 1. In 

Key considerations for this task: 

•	 Did you factor qualitative and quantitative 

impacts and benefits into your monetized 

results? These can help you choose the best 

action scenario or decide whether an action 

scenario is worthwhile, especially when the 

monetized results are less conclusive. 

•	 Did you assess the feasibility of paying both 

capital and maintenance costs in each action 

scenario? Communities often neglect to plan 

how to finance maintenance and 

administrative costs. 

Experts required for this task: 

•	 Economists to help you interpret your results 

in Steps 1 and 2. 

determining whether an action scenario makes financial sense, consider what types of coastal flooding 

events must occur for total benefits to outweigh costs. One or two frequent, low-water-level increase 

scenarios might justify an action, perhaps indicating a worthwhile scenario. Alternatively, it might 

require 10 huge high-water-level events for total benefits to exceed NPV of total costs, perhaps 

indicating a bad financial decision. 

Option B: risk assessment 

Calculate the net benefits—the difference in NPV of total benefits calculated in Task 1 of this chapter 

and NPV of total costs calculated in Task 2 of this chapter. Calculate the benefit-to-cost ratio—NPV of 

total benefits divided by NPV of total costs. Make these calculations for each action scenario under each 

SLR scenario. Table 4.7 provides an example. 

42 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Table 4.7: Sample Net Benefit and Benefit to Cost Calculations for a Risk Assessment 

NPV of Total 

Benefits* 

NPV of Total 

Costs Net Benefits Benefit-toCost Ratio 

Non-Monetized 

Benefits 

Action Scenario 1 $33.95 billion $10.61 billion $23.34 billion 3.2:1 Medium 

Action Scenario 2 $1.5 billion $0.5 billion $1 billion 3:1 High 

Action Scenario 3 $25 million $5 million $20 million 5:1 Low 

* The NPV of Total Benefits and NPV of Total Costs for Action Scenario 1 are pulled from Tables 4.4 and 4.5, 

respectively, and assume a 3 percent discount rate. Values for Action Scenario 2 and 3 were not derived from 

another table in this framework but are included for illustrative purposes. 

Step 2: For each action scenario, decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs. As well as the 

monetized costs and benefits you have just tabulated, consider qualitative and quantitative impacts 

and benefits. When the monetized results are less conclusive, these considerations may make the 

difference. (When the monetized results are overwhelming in one direction, on the other hand, they 

may not affect the outcome.) Also consider the implications of non-monetized co-benefits described 

in Task 1 of this Chapter. These non-monetized benefits can tip the balance in favor of scenarios 

with a lower monetized benefit-to-cost ratio, indicating that they may warrant a higher ranking than 

would be indicated by monetized values alone. 

Step 3: Assess the feasibility of funding each action scenario that you found to be potentially 

worthwhile. Determine the feasibility of funding the capital and maintenance costs for each action 

scenario. 

Step 4: Rank your action scenarios from best to worst based on the first three steps of this 

process and any other factors you want to bring into the discussion. 4 Remember to factor in the 

outcome of the monetized cost-benefit analysis, qualitative and quantitative impacts, and funding 

feasibility. In the sample data in Table 4.7, for example, action scenario 1 could have the highest net 

benefits and the second highest benefit-to-cost ratio; however, for many communities, the inability 

to finance such a measure could make it an inferior option. 

4 The FEMA “STAPLEE” method is one process for considering a range of factors. This method is designed to help 

planning teams consider in a systematic way the Social, Technical, Administrative, Political, Legal, Economic, and 

Environmental (STAPLEE) opportunities and constraints of implementing a hazard mitigation action. This method is 

detailed in a FEMA guide entitled Developing the Mitigation Plan: Identifying Mitigation Actions and 

Implementation Strategies, which is available online at http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=1886. 

43 
 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Conclusion: Economics is Only One Piece of Informed 

Decision-making 

Understanding short and long-term costs and benefits of different adaptation strategies, as well as the 

costs of not taking action, is critical to making resilience-minded decisions that are fiscally and socially 

responsible. But community decisions are not based solely on economics. Other factors will need to be 

considered prior to implementing an action scenario—including social feasibility, community culture, 

and administrative and legal aspects. While economics are a very important criterion to consider, the 

unique conditions, history, and desired vision of each community will influence decisions about how to 

plan for and adapt to inundation threats from sea level rise and storms. As mentioned at the beginning 

of this guide, we recommend community leaders engage area stakeholders and residents in the decision 

process to develop a complete picture of community interests. Applying this framework can produce 

economic information that will be an important part of a community discussion. 

44 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix A: Adaptation Strategies 

The fact sheets in this appendix provide general, introductory information about a variety of adaptation 

strategies that communities may consider. Many of these strategies could be used to protect either 

private property or public infrastructure. Some of the strategies are traditionally employed to protect 

private property but could also be viable options to protect public property as well. This appendix is not 

intended to be a comprehensive inventory, but rather to introduce a range of strategies that help 

illustrate varying approaches: managed retreat policies, tidal management, engineered barriers, 

infrastructure modification/design, land use policy, and green infrastructure. 

The fact sheets provide an overview of costs, effectiveness, and barriers to implementation. When 

reviewing these strategies for use in your own community, keep in mind that: 

•	 Costs can vary significantly depending on the unique characteristics of your community and the 

exact nature of a project or policy, 

•	 Non-economic factors such as legal challenges or public outreach needs can increase the 

resources needed to implement a strategy, 

•	 The lifespan and effectiveness of any project will depend on the severity of future events. 

Some fact sheets include special considerations for certain adaptation strategies, but when investigating 

any potential strategy a community will need to consider a number of factors such as social feasibility, 

environmental impacts, and administrative and legal aspects. 

The current state of knowledge pertaining to adaptation strategies is growing rapidly as more and more 

communities seek and test out solutions to current and future inundation hazards. Communities should 

seek out additional sources of information to learn more about the strategies contained in this appendix 

and to identify additional strategies. The resources listed in the “Key References” text box in Chapter 2 

of this framework as well as those that follow are a few potential sources of additional information: 

•	 The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a variety of publications related to 

flood hazard mitigation measures, including guidance documents as well as case studies. FEMA 

recently released Mitigation Ideas: A Resource for Reducing Risk to Natural Hazards, which 

includes actions to mitigation risks from storm surge, flood, and sea level rise. 

•	 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has resources related to both structural and nonstructural flood mitigation measures. Visit the Flood Risk Management for State and Local 

Partners section of the USACE Flood Risk Management Program website for more information. 

•	 The Georgetown Climate Center has a searchable Adaptation Clearinghouse that provides more 

detailed information on a wide range of adaptation measures. 

•	 NOAA’s Adapting to Climate Change: A Planning Guide for State Coastal Managers includes a 

chapter on adaptation strategies, many of which are related to inundation hazards. 

A-1 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-1: Transfer of Development Rights 

A transfer of development rights (TDR) ordinance provides a way for property owners to transfer 

development rights from one area to another. In the context of coastal flooding, this can be used as a 

measure to move future development from vulnerable areas to those that are completely out of harm’s 

way. Additionally, TDR programs can be used to preserve open space, thereby facilitating the 

implementation of other mitigation measures, such as wetlands development or other green 

infrastructure to further increase a community’s resilience to coastal flooding. TDRs are usually 

administered through a local government zoning ordinance, with specific districts zoned as either 

sending or receiving parcels. It is the local government’s responsibility to determine the specific number 

and type of development rights (usually in terms of dwelling units or floor area per acre) that will be 

transferred. Once the transaction is complete, development rights are legally separated from the first 

“sending” parcel of land and attached to the second “receiving” parcel for use by the owner for 

development.1 

Cost 

TDR is a low-cost option for local governments because they are typically only responsible for the costs 

of developing and implementing the program through its planning and zoning functions, while the 

owners and sellers typically pay the costs for the development rights. Sometimes, local governments 

include transaction fees with the cost of the development rights when they are sold to help offset the 

costs of administering the program. 

Effectiveness 

TDR can be a highly effective and long-term solution to mitigate impacts of coastal flooding, as long as 

the development parcels are moved out of harm’s way—to higher, further inland, and more protected 

areas. 

Barriers to Implementation 

TDR can be legally complex to implement and is generally not quickly implemented. For a program to be 

effective, TDR requires purchaser demand for the development rights as well as willing sellers. 

Special Considerations 

In some cases, a buyer, such as the local government or a nonprofit organization, may purchase the 

development rights to hold or sell them at a later date. In this case, the buyer could choose to 

permanently retire the development rights for conservation purposes 

1 American Planning Association (2006). Planning and Urban Design Standards. 

A-2 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-2: Purchase of Development Rights 

Purchase of development rights (PDR) involves a local government or nonprofit purchasing development 

rights while the land remains privately owned. This restricts the future use of a property from certain 

types of development and is often used to preserve open space or farmland. In the context of coastal 

flooding, this can be used as a measure to prevent future development from occurring in vulnerable 

areas. PDRs are usually administered through a local government and often performed in collaboration 

with a nonprofit or trust that manages preservation activities. 

Cost 

PDR is a mid-price option with a higher cost than TDR but lower cost than a fee-simple acquisition—or 

outright buyout of the land. Costs for local government include those for developing and implementing 

the program as well as for purchasing the development rights. Purchase price for the development 

rights is estimated based on the most valuable use for the land allowed by zoning. For example, if the 

land is currently used for farming but could be developed for commercial uses based on current zoning 

laws, then the purchase price is generally based on the commercial value of the land.2 

Effectiveness 

Much like TDR, PDR is an effective and long-term solution; however, because participation in a PDR 

program is voluntary for the land owner, the programs can take a long time to implement over a large 

area. The PDR programs that would be most effective for limiting damage from coastal flooding are 

those that create large and contiguous areas with permanently preserved open space to serve as a 

buffer between flooding and development. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Because PDR programs rely on the voluntary participation of land owners, they generally are not quickly 

implemented. In addition, despite costing less than fee-simple acquisition, development rights can be 

prohibitively expensive for some local governments and are often tax-funded, which subjects PDR 

programs to political and economic risk. 

Special Considerations 

PDR usually only limits future development of housing, commercial, and similar functions; it does not 

remove existing development on a piece of land and does not prevent all future use of that land. The 

agreements generally allow the current land owner to stay on the land and, unless explicitly stated, do 

not prevent other activities, such as mining and farming. 

2 http://ohioline.osu.edu/cd-fact/1263.html 

A-3 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-3: Rolling Easements 

Rolling easements are enforceable legal agreements that prohibit engineered barriers or other types of 

coastal armoring and that require removal of structures seaward of a migrating shoreline.

3 Rolling 

easements ensure that the shoreline will move naturally, and the shoreline is specifically defined (e.g. 

mean high water, vegetation line, or the upper boundary of tidal wetlands.) As the shoreline erodes or 

is inundated by sea level rise, existing development that ends up seaward of the defined line must be 

removed from harm’s way. The easements may also potentially discourage future development in these 

areas. As the shoreline continues to recede, the easement “rolls” farther inland. The intent of rolling 

easements is to allow natural erosion to take place, which preserves natural sediment transport 

systems, wetlands, and other tidal habitats. 4 Easements can be purchased by a local government, 

donated by the land owner, or carried out through zoning. 

Cost 

Rolling easements are typically cheaper than protecting the land. In less developed areas, land owners 

are more likely to donate easements or sell them for a low price. Rolling easements for more densely 

developed areas have a higher cost because the land is more valuable and structures will have to be 

moved or abandoned as the shoreline moves in. 

Effectiveness 

When rolling easements lead to the removal of existing structures, they can prevent future flood 

damages in structure no longer subject to repeated or sustained inundation, but the value of the 

structure is also lost. Rolling easements are, however, a long-term strategy for potentially discouraging 

new housing developments along shorelines because they create the expectation that shoreline 

development will not be protected from flooding and erosion with engineered barriers or other types of 

coastal armoring. Thus, rolling easements have the potential long-term effect of mitigating future floodrelated damage. Rolling easements can be most effective when implemented along undeveloped 

stretches of shoreline. 

Barriers to Implementation 

One method for implementing rolling easements is by obtaining voluntary participation of land owners; 

this can make the easements difficult to quickly implement, however, because property values are 

negatively impacted and existing structures cannot be protected with coastal armoring. Additionally, 

regulatory approaches toward implementation can often be legally complex. 

Special Considerations 

Rolling easements have sometimes been relaxed or removed in future years if the public starts 

becoming more sympathetic with regard to the destruction of waterfront housing. 

3 http://water.epa.gov/type/oceb/cre/upload/rollingeasementsprimer.pdf 

4 http://coastalmanagement.noaa.gov/initiatives/shoreline_ppr_easements.html 

A-4 
 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-4: Fee-Simple Acquisition 

Fee-simple acquisition involves the outright purchase of property and all associated development rights. 

Fee-simple acquisition is often used when local governments purchase waterfront properties that are 

vulnerable to erosion and flooding. 5 In the context of coastal flooding, the purpose of the acquisition is 

to remove or prevent future development in vulnerable areas and to reduce future damage from coastal 

flooding. Fee-simple acquisitions can be used in conjunction with other managed retreat policies to 

preserve open space, which in turn can be used to implement other mitigation measures, such as 

wetlands development or green infrastructure, to further increase a community’s resilience to coastal 

flooding. 

Cost 

Fee-simple acquisition is a high-cost option. The costs include purchasing the property and structures at 

fair value from a private owner. These costs are generally paid by local governments and financed by 

bonds (which can be difficult to implement) or federal or state grants (e.g., FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation 

Grant Program.) Grants are sometimes available to help counties acquire important coastal lands. Feesimple acquisition could also reduce property tax generation that had been collected from the 

purchased structures and/or land. 

Effectiveness 

Fee simple acquisition is highly effective because the public owns all rights to the land and can restrict 

development for as long as it maintains ownership. 

Barriers to Implementation 

The mechanisms for executing and financing fee-simple acquisition can be challenging. If property 

owners are unwilling to sell, the local government must exercise eminent domain in order to execute 

the purchase. Additionally, large-scale purchases can be prohibitively expensive for local governments to 

finance, although grants are sometimes available to help counties acquire important coastal lands. 

Special Considerations 

If local governments choose to pursue this through a forced buyout—or eminent domain—the process, 

cost, and ability of local governments can vary significantly depending on location. 

5 http://nationalshorelinemanagement.us/docs/Econ_Workshop_IWR04-NSMS-2.pdf 

A-5 
 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-5: Infrastructure Relocation 

Infrastructure relocation involves moving vulnerable infrastructure to areas less susceptible to coastal 

flooding. Relocation can be a viable option for many types of infrastructure, including roads, bridges, 

buildings, utilities, and wastewater treatment plants. Moving infrastructure may involve physically 

relocating the existing infrastructure, constructing new replacement infrastructure, or otherwise shifting 

the function of the infrastructure to a different location. One way to shift the function to a less 

vulnerable area is through regionalization (e.g., expanding capacity at an existing waste water treatment 

plant in a less vulnerable area to eventually replace another wastewater treatment plant in a vulnerable 

area). 

Cost 

Cost varies depending on the infrastructure being relocated and can include the cost for new 

construction, moving lines, or physical relocation, as well as the cost of the land to which the 

infrastructure is being moved. Large and expensive infrastructure, such as power plants, sewer systems, 

and water treatment plants, can be very expensive to relocate, while roads and simple buildings are 

more financially feasible. Regionalization offers a lower cost alternative by having large infrastructure 

from a neighboring community replace the at-risk infrastructure in your community. With this approach, 

existing equipment is moved into the new facility, potentially increasing the capacity of the neighboring 

infrastructure. This could be a more cost-effective strategy for a wastewater treatment plant compared 

to relocating it because the land and supporting infrastructure (e.g., feeder lines) are already in place. 

Effectiveness 

Relocation is effective if the infrastructure is moved out of the vulnerable area. If the infrastructure is 

not moved completely outside the vulnerable area, the overall effectiveness depends on the exposure 

and resilience of the infrastructure to coastal flooding. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Some types of infrastructure (e.g., power, water, and communication lines) are relatively easy to move, 

while larger structures, such as power plants, large highways, and water treatment facilities, are not. 

These larger structures also require relocating supporting infrastructure, such as feeder pipes, 

substations, and distribution lines that connect them to the existing infrastructure. In addition, new 

utility facilities can require large areas of land and the establishment of new utility lines, which 

sometimes must be routed through private property. 

Special Considerations 

Regionalization can be an effective way to move critical infrastructure away from flood-prone areas; 

however, this approach can also increase the overall level of vulnerability, because if the infrastructure 

is damaged, the impact will be felt over a larger area. Additionally, relocating critical infrastructure 

components could limit the accessibility for some vulnerable populations. 

A-6 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-6: Storm Surge Barriers 

A surge barrier is a hard-engineered structure at a river mouth or estuary designed to prevent flooding. 

It can be either a fixed structure (e.g., closure dam) that is permanently closed or consist of moveable 

gates or barriers that can be closed when high water levels are forecast. 

Cost 

Surge barriers tend to have high capital and maintenance costs, although the cost can vary significantly 

depending on local conditions. In general, movable barriers are more expensive than fixed barriers. Due 

to the cost, only a handful of movable barriers exist, including the Thames Barrier in London, the 

Maeslantkering Barrier in Rotterdam, the St. Petersburg Flood Protection Barrier, and the MOSE project 

in Venice. The costs of these projects varied from $100 million to several billion dollars. Generally, surge 

barrier construction costs range between $0.7 and $3.5 million per meter, and annual maintenance 

costs can be about 5 to 10 percent of the capital cost. 6 By preventing the inflow of water to an estuary, 

closure dams can significantly impact the environment by altering water salinity, temperature, 

suspended matter, and nutrients, all of which have the potential to affect the local ecosystem. Closure 

dams also may interfere with the use of the waterways for transportation. Using movable barriers 

mitigates both these impacts. 

Effectiveness 

Surge barriers prevent storm surges from entering interior areas for water-level increases up to what 

they are built to withstand. The technology effectively reduces the height of extreme water levels in the 

area behind the barrier. For movable barriers, a storm surge monitoring and forecasting system must be 

used to ensure that the barrier is moved into position before a storm surge arrives. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Significant environmental costs as well as impacts on waterway transportation can be substantial 

barriers to implementation. 

Special Considerations 

Many closure dams are outfitted with turbines to produce electricity from tidal energy. One concern is 

that closing barriers might cause additional flooding behind the closure during heavy rainfall because 

the water would not be able to escape the protected area. 

6 http://www.unep.org/pdf/TNAhandbook_CoastalErosionFlooding.pdf 

A-7 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-7: Beach Nourishment 

As beaches erode, coastlines move inland, closer to people and property along the shore, and storm 

surges are more likely to flood coastal areas. Narrower beaches also expose dunes to wave action and 

erosion, which negates the protection they offer to coastal infrastructure. 7 Beach nourishment, also 

known as beach replenishment or renourishment, is a common strategy used to combat such erosion 

and flooding along sandy coastlines. It involves dumping or pumping high-quality sand from an outside 

source to replace sand lost to erosion. Nourishment typically uses dredges, trucks, or conveyor belts to 

move sand from one location to the other. By replacing sand lost to erosion, beach nourishment creates 

a wider beach, which can help mitigate potential damage to coastal property, It can also cause waves to 

begin to break farther from the shoreline, weakening their strength before they reach the beach. 

Cost 

Beach nourishment is a fairly expensive mitigation measure, generally costing between $300 and $1,000 

per linear foot, including material, transportation, and construction costs. 8 In addition, the maintenance 

costs of beach nourishment are substantial, as it must be repeated every few years. Negative 

environmental impacts are a concern, primarily ecosystem impacts from dredging and burying 

organisms with the new sand in the area where the nourishment occurs. 

Effectiveness 

Beach nourishment is a short-term solution that protects people and property by decreasing the energy 

of waves and limiting how far inland storm surges travel. Beaches must be supplemented with 

additional quantities of sand every few years, however, for this measure to continue to be effective. 

Beach nourishment is very effective against water-level increases up to the beach height; for larger 

events that greatly exceed the beach height, however, beach nourishment will have a minimal effect on 

mitigating coastal flooding, and the flooding levels will be similar to what they would be without the 

measure. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Initial cost and frequent maintenance typically are the largest barriers to implementation. Finding 

adequate and suitable sand may be a challenge in some areas. Additionally, the question of who pays 

and who benefits may lead to some outcries about fairness in terms of spending money to protect and 

potentially increase the value of a small number of beachfront properties. The permitting process could 

also be slow, given the potential for negative environmental impacts. 

Special Considerations 

Beach nourishment expands the size of beaches, which could lead to increases in beach-related 

recreation and associated tourism revenues. Nourishment can have an unintended effect of creating a 

“false sense of security” for existing or new property owners who underestimate the vulnerability of 

areas landward of the beach. 

7 http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/docs/projects/HowBeachNourishmentWorksPrimer.pdf
 8 Dean, Robert G. (2002). Beach nourishment: theory and practice. Vol. 18. World Scientific Publishing Company.
 

A-8 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-8: Seawalls 

Seawalls are vertical or near-vertical structures built along the coast and designed to prevent erosion 

and coastal flooding. Seawalls form a protective wall in front of coastal structures and may be 

constructed from a variety of materials, including concrete, steel, wood, and boulders. 

Cost 

Seawall construction costs range from $150 to $4,000 per linear foot, depending on engineering and 

construction specifications and local site conditions. 9 In general, the taller and wider the seawall, the 

more expensive it is to construct. Seawalls also require significant maintenance over the life of the 

structure. Seawalls can decrease tourism and accompanying revenue, however, if the associated beach 

is lost. 

Effectiveness 

To the degree that a seawall is tall enough and strong enough, it can prevent coastal flooding from sealevel rise and storm-surge. If the water-level increase exceeds the height of the seawall, however, 

substantial coastal flooding will occur, and the seawall might only reduce wave power and water 

velocity, not flood height. 

With proper construction and maintenance, seawalls last for 30 years, on average, depending on type of 

construction and the frequency of extreme weather events. 10 

Barriers to Implementation 

Seawalls require a high capital cost. Additionally, seawalls often elicit a mixed response from local 

communities because they can actually increase erosion of fronting beaches and adjacent properties 

and often generate controversy over their aesthetic impacts. Some areas, by regulation, strictly limit or 

forbid the use of seawalls. 

Special Considerations 

Seawalls can cause increased erosion (called “flanking erosion”) in adjacent areas. At either end of a 

seawall, waves tend to reflect sideways along the shore, causing those areas to erode faster. 

9 Yohe, Gary, et al. (1996). “The economic cost of greenhouse-induced sea-level rise for developed property in the 

United States.” Climatic Change 32(4): 387–410. 10 Seachange Consulting (2011). Weighing Your Options: How to Protect Your Property from Shoreline Erosion: A 

Handbook for Estuarine Property Owners in North Carolina. North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. 

A-9 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-9: Levees and Dikes 

Levees, also known as dikes, are constructed embankments designed to reduce the risk of flooding to 

the areas behind them. Levees are typically built parallel to the course of a river or along coastlines in 

order to contain, control, or divert the flow of water. Levees are constructed from compacted soil or 

artificial materials such as concrete or steel. To protect against erosion and scouring, earthen levees can 

be covered with grass and gravel or a hard surface like stone, asphalt, or concrete. 

Cost 

When land acquisition costs are low, levees are often the cheapest form of hard defense relative to how 

much protection they can offer. In general, construction can cost between $100 11 and $1,500 per linear 

foot depending on the height and slope 12 Maintenance costs are also an ongoing requirement to ensure 

the structure continues to provide appropriate levels of protection. 

Effectiveness 

Levees can provide a high degree of protection against flooding in low-lying coastal areas. Effective 

levees are built with a high volume of material to resist water pressure, sloping sides to reduce wave 

energy, and crest heights sufficient to prevent overtopping by flood waters. Levees prevent flooding 

until they are overtopped with water or are breached (i.e., broken or eroded away), at which point flood 

waters will rise about as high as they would without a levee. 

Barriers to Implementation 

The high volume and sloping shape of levees necessitates a large building footprint. This factor will be 

especially important in areas with high property values. 

11 FEMA 2007. Selecting Appropriate Mitigation Measures for Floodprone Structures. Table 5.2 12 Moore. 2009. The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast. Sacramento: California Climate 

Change Center. 

A-10 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-10: Sandbagging 

Sandbagging is a simple and common way to prevent or reduce flood damage. A sandbag is a sack made 

of burlap, polypropylene, or other material that is filled with sand or soil. Sandbags are stacked to build 

temporary barriers to hold back flood waters. The bags can be brought in empty and filled with local 

sand or soil. 

Cost 

Sandbagging is generally one of the cheapest methods for flood protection since the bags cost about 25 

cents each and are typically filled by volunteers. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that 

constructing a 100-ft long, 3-ft high sandbag barrier would cost about $3,100. 13 Depending on the 

situation, additional costs may be incurred for the fill material and removal. Sandbagging can be timeconsuming, however, and requires a significant amount of labor. 

Effectiveness 

Sandbags are usually effective at temporarily mitigating flood damage. They are most effective when 

used to build barriers that are less than 4 feet tall. 14 Taller or poorly constructed barriers can be prone 

to sliding and overturning. Sandbags are also susceptible to water seeping through or beneath the bags. 

Sandbags should be used to provide a basic level of protection, but they are unlikely to hold back flood 

waters entirely. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Sandbagging requires a significant amount of labor that must be mobilized quickly before a storm. 

Special Considerations 

Disposing of sandbags after a flood can be problematic. Sandbags that have been exposed to water 

cannot easily be reused. Wet sandbags tend to start deteriorating after a few weeks and may be 

contaminated by unsafe materials in the flood water. Disposing of the bags requires a considerable 

effort and generates a significant amount of solid waste. 

13 http://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/D82-46-1999E.pdf 14http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2008/06/the_25cent_flood_protection_device.html 

A-11 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-11: Elevated Development 

Elevated development involves physically raising infrastructure (e.g., on stilts/pilings or raised land) so 

that water can temporarily flow underneath and/or around without harming the main structure. 15 

Elevated development can be included in the original design or added as a retrofit. Traditionally, only 

buildings are elevated, while the surrounding infrastructure (e.g., roads, walkways) is not; thus, while a 

building may be protected from flood damage, access to it may be limited during a coastal flood. It is 

possible to raise surrounding infrastructure, including roads, bridges, walkways, and utility lines. One 

common example of elevated development is beach homes that are built on stilts, often with the first 

floor at a height of 10 feet or more above ground level. Elevating structures is a relatively easy feature 

to incorporate into the design of a facility or infrastructure during initial construction, but it is more 

challenging to incorporate as a retrofit. Physically raising a structure that is already elevated slightly (e.g. 

with a crawlspace) is more feasible than elevating “slab-on-grade” construction. 

Cost 

Incorporating elevated development into the design of a new house adds $2,000 to $30,000 to the cost 

of the house depending on its size and foundation type, while raising an existing building can easily be 

well over double this cost. The total costs for raising a building increase with building size and weight but 

are not directly related to building size.16, 17 Raising an area of land and/or raising surrounding 

infrastructure is much more expensive. The cost will vary depending on the amount and type of 

infrastructure being raised. Raising entire areas of land is very expensive because large amounts of dirt 

and fill must be transported to the raised site. 

Effectiveness 

Elevated development is effective in protecting buildings and infrastructure from floods at water levels 

lower than the base of the first floor of the raised facility and is generally effective for the expected life 

expectancy of the structure, which might range from 25 to 50 years. 

Barriers to Implementation 

There are rarely major barriers to implementing elevated development into new construction. Cost to 

implement, particularly for larger and older buildings, as well as the potential for structural damage, are 

major barriers to raising an existing building. Creating sufficient access for the handicapped and elderly 

is also a potential concern. Potential legal liability can hinder being able to raise roads in existing 

developed areas, because the government entity raising the road is then responsible if drainage 

patterns are altered and increased flooding results. 

15 http://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/CivilWorks/ProjectPlanning/nfpc.aspx 16 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/national/nationalspecial/12flood.html 17 Deschapelles, Natalie (2012). Dissertation: An Evaluation of, and Suggestions for, Charlotte County Coastal 

Management, with Regards to Sea Level Rise Vulnerability. 

A-12 
What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Special Considerations 

Unless the surrounding infrastructure is also raised, flooding will still impact the accessibility of the 

raised structures and disrupt the economic activities they support. 

A-13 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-12: Floating Development 

Floating development builds structures on foundations that, when flooded, rise vertically on top of flood 

waters instead of being inundated. The structures are prevented from moving horizontally by pilings or 

similar anchors that keep them in the same location and prevents them from floating away. Typically, 

only individual buildings are constructed on floating foundations, not the surrounding infrastructure. 

Although there are few common and widely used examples of floating buildings, architects have 

developed designs that add minimal cost to new construction. Retrofitting an existing facility with a 

floating foundation would prove challenging, and success would depend on the structure size, age, and 

type of foundation. Floating development becomes more difficult for buildings with larger weight-tofoundation-size ratios and taller buildings due to the potential instability of a floating foundation.18 

Cost 

Although not a widely used technology, floating development is expected to cost about the same as 

elevated development. Retrofitting a large and/or old building is often cost prohibitive compared to 

demolishing and rebuilding, unless the building has historic significance or some other intangible 

value.19 

Effectiveness 

Floating development is an unproven technology for modern and dense development. Theoretically, it is 

effective for protecting buildings from floods at water levels lower than the maximum height to which 

the building is designed to float. Floating development is designed to be effective for the life cycle of the 

building. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Theoretically, there are few barriers to incorporating floating development into new construction. The 

main technological constraints are related to building size. Retrofitting an existing building with a 

floating foundation can be challenging. The process of setting a building on a new and potentially 

unstable foundation can result in structural damage.20 

Special Considerations 

Floating development is susceptible to damage from wind, waves, and currents from storms. Therefore, 

it is only effective in relatively protected areas, not in open water along the coastline, which is 

susceptible to high-energy waves. 

18 http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/as-sea-levels-rise-dutch-see-floating-cities/ 19 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/05/preparing-for-a-life-on-water-with-floating-architecture.html 20 http://www.spur.org/publications/library/report/strategiesformanagingsealevelrise_110109 

A-14 
 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-13: Floodable Development 

Buildings can be designed to allow water to flood the lower floor(s) while causing minimal structural 

damage to the walls, floors, and foundation. On a larger scale, floodable development can also include 

structures and green infrastructure designed to capture, retain, and gradually release water when the 

flood recedes. This helps guide flood water away from more sensitive infrastructure. Examples include 

large underground storage systems such as parking garages designed to hold flood waters, as well as 

low-lying fields, ponds, or lakes designed to hold water drained from surrounding areas. 

Cost 

Floodable development can be integrated into facilities at little to no cost for new construction. Costs 

for neighborhood-level infrastructure to support floodable buildings (for example, a parking garage 

designed to hold flood water) vary greatly depending on the type and size. 

Effectiveness 

Floodable buildings are designed to be effective at preventing structural damage from floods up to a 

specific height. Supporting floodable infrastructure, such as a water-holding parking garage or pond, can 

hold a specific amount of water, making it easy to calculate how well the structure will mitigate flooding. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Design-related challenges are associated with floodable buildings because structures must be 

engineered to withstand regular flooding. Depending on the size of larger scale retention structures, 

coordination with multiple public and private land owners as well as other stakeholders may be required 

to work through large-scale planning or land-use issues. 

Special Considerations 

Floodable development can be hazardous to health, particularly in seaward areas, because floodwater 

often contains high concentrations of organic chemicals, heavy metals, bacteria, and sediment and could 

leave behind contamination after the waters subside. 21 

21 http://www.spur.org/publications/library/report/strategiesformanagingsealevelrise_110109 

A-15 
 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-14: Movable Buildings 

Movable buildings are designed to be easily relocated in advance of flooding or storm events. The most 

common movable buildings are trailers and modular buildings, which are moved by truck or train. These 

buildings are usually left on trailers or set on a concrete slab foundation. Movable buildings are usually 

limited to small structures because of the logistics and cost involved in relocating them. 

Cost 

Prefabricated movable buildings, such as modular homes, are inexpensive to build and relocate relative 

to the cost of replacement. Costs for both construction and relocation increase significantly with size. 

Large buildings are generally not designed to be movable because the high cost and complicated 

logistics involved in regularly moving large buildings makes them cost prohibitive—especially when 

including the costs for multiple moves. In addition, retrofitting buildings to be movable can be expensive 

compared to demolishing and rebuilding when you add in the cost of relocation. 

Effectiveness 

The ability to physically move buildings outside of an at-risk area eliminates damage to buildings from 

flooding. The logistics of moving a large number of buildings are complex, however, because of the time 

involved. Being able to move buildings requires advance flood warnings as well as sufficient 

transportation infrastructure to support the movement of both people and buildings. 

Barriers to Implementation 

There must be designated receiving areas where the buildings will be relocated. These areas must be 

out of the flood zone but close enough to allow the buildings to be quickly relocated. In addition, 

planners will want to consider whether utilities and infrastructure are in place to support the buildings 

for both temporary and permanent relocation. 

Special Considerations 

Advance planning and early warning are needed to mobilize and coordinate building relocation in 

advance of a storm or flood. 

A-16 
 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-15: Drainage Systems 

Drainage systems can be designed to mitigate flooding on a building, local, or regional level. Like 

floodable development, buildings and infrastructure can be designed with drains, pumps, and other 

systems to transport flood water into existing sewer systems, waterways, or other designated floodable 

areas. Regional drainage systems can include natural or manmade waterways that quickly remove water 

from a flooded area. Drainage systems are often integrated into stormwater and wastewater 

infrastructure at the local and regional level; thus, simply diverting large amounts of water into these 

systems risks overwhelming them, increasing erosion rates, and amplifying the severity of downstream 

floods. 

Cost 

Costs for drainage systems vary according to the area over which they are deployed and the size of flood 

they are designed to mitigate. Large-scale structural drainage systems, typically composed of concrete 

and steel, have a high cost that increases relative to the amount of area they are supposed to drain and 

have a cost on par with other heavily engineered structures. Localized drainage systems that simply 

drain water from a building or parcel into existing waterways are less expensive to install. In addition, 

manmade drainage systems require regular maintenance to inspect, repair, and clean the systems after 

large floods. 

Effectiveness 

While building, parcel-sized, and more localized drainage systems can be designed to accommodate 

specific-size flood events, large and more regional systems are hard to design, integrate, and maintain. 

As such, the overall effectiveness of these systems is not very predictable. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Drainage systems are straightforward to incorporate into development on a local and neighborhood 

level. Designing effective regional drainage systems can be complex, especially for densely populated 

areas. 

Special Considerations 

Trends for stormwater management increasingly focus on managing flooding and stormwater in place 

through infiltration and evaporation instead of draining into heavily constructed stormwater 

infrastructure that quickly moves the water off site. In addition, it is important to consider the 

downstream impacts of draining off large amounts of water and ensure that draining one area does not 

lead to damaging floods and erosion downstream. 

A-17 
What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-16: Floodproofing Infrastructure 

Floodproofing infrastructure uses a combination of methods, including many described in this report, to 

mitigate or eliminate the potential for flood damage at a given level of flooding, thus lowering the 

depth-damage curve for a given building. Floodproofing can allow water to flood a building or area (wet 

flood-proofing) or prevent water from entering a building or area (typically referred to as dry floodproofing). Building-level examples of floodproofing include sump pumps, spray-on cement, 

waterproofing membrane, wood or metal shielding, and locating utilities and key equipment at higher 

levels. 

Cost 

Floodproofing a building is relatively inexpensive compared to other mitigation measures and usually 

increases the cost of new construction by 0 to 25 percent, depending on the desired level of protection. 

Effectiveness 

Usually floodproofing is designed to reduce but not completely eliminate the amount of damage for a 

given level of flooding. Floodproofing involves the recognition and acceptance of certain amounts of 

damage for specific flood levels and is only effective up to these predetermined levels. Dry floodproofing 

is effective up to a certain water-level increase, after which the force of the water acting on the 

structure can cause it to collapse. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Cost is typically the largest barrier to implementing floodproofing infrastructure. 

Special Considerations 

While floodproofing typically protects against certain water-level increases, these measures do not 

always account for a high velocity of water rushing in from the ocean, which can destroy structures. 

A-18 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-17: Preservation of Open Space 

Preserving open space involves setting aside land for limited or no development. This can be 

accomplished in a variety of ways, including by purchasing the land or through a conservation easement. 

A conservation easement is a voluntary agreement that limits development on a property while 

maintaining private ownership of the land. In the context of coastal flood mitigation, open space 

preservation is used to prevent development in vulnerable areas and mitigate the severity of flooding. 

Preservation of open space is commonly used in conjunction with other green-infrastructure-based 

flood mitigation measures.22 

Cost 

Costs vary depending on land value and the method of preservation. The cost of preserving land in a 

locality through fee-simple acquisition—or direct purchase—is equal to the assessed property value. 

Easements average 60 percent of the cost of fee-simple acquisition; a more accurate cost can be 

determined by calculating the present worth of the highest value land use that would be given up with 

the easement. 23 There are also maintenance costs and the potential loss of property taxes versus what 

could be generated if the land were to be developed. 

Effectiveness 

For as long as the open space is preserved, designating vulnerable areas as undevelopable is highly 

effective at preventing flood-related damage in those areas by reducing the amount of infrastructure 

that could be exposed. Effectiveness is most often evaluated by modeling the impacts of flooding under 

different open-space and development scenarios. 

Barriers to Implementation 

The costs to purchase and manage open space present the most significant challenges to 

implementation because localities often lack the resources to fund effective open-space preservation 

programs. In addition, property owners can be unwilling to give up development rights or to sell land in 

prime waterfront areas. 

Special Considerations 

Preserving open space can also provides valuable social and environmental benefits based on the use of 

the open space, which may equal or exceed the flood mitigation benefits. 

22 American Planning Association (2006). Planning and Urban Design Standards. 23 http://www.rff.org/RFF/Documents/RFF-Rpt-Kousky%20etal%20GreatLakes%20(2).pdf 

A-19 
 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-18: Zoning in Vulnerable Areas 

Zoning ordinances restrict allowable land uses for a defined area or district. Zoning may regulate land 

use; intensity; density; building height, placement, and bulk; and other development features. In the 

context of flood planning, zoning can prevent or limit development in exposed areas, ensure that new 

development does not increase the severity of flooding, and require that new and renovated structures 

incorporate flood-resilient features. Local ordinances must, at a minimum, comply with federal 

requirements for developing within floodplains, and many zoning ordinances already include measures 

related to flood-hazard areas. 

Cost 

Zoning is a low-cost option. Zoning to mitigate flood-related impacts can be incorporated into a 

municipality’s existing zoning code. The local government bears the cost of developing zoning codes, 

reviewing development applications for consistency with the code, and enforcing the zoning code. These 

costs vary by the complexity of the zoning code, the volume of development application, and the area 

and level of enforcement. 

Effectiveness 

The effectiveness is directly related to the regulations that the zoning implements and the associated 

enforcement. For example, preventing any development is highly effective, while requiring raised and 

flood-proofed structures is moderately effective at preventing future damage. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Processes for changing zoning ordinances vary by state and locality. Often, proposed zoning 

amendments must go through a lengthy review process that includes public involvement as well as 

approval by a local board or city council. Zoning that restricts development is sometimes a controversial 

and unpopular strategy, and may lead to legal challenges. 

Special Considerations 

Changes to zoning amendments generally must be consistent with a local comprehensive or master 

plan, which describes the long-term land use goals for an area. Changes to the zoning code that are 

inconsistent with the plan could be subject to legal challenge.24 

24 American Planning Association (2006). Planning and Urban Design Standards. 

A-20 
 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-19: Development Fees in Vulnerable Areas 

Development fees are one-time charges imposed by local governments on new development projects 

and are designed to cover costs for infrastructure to support the new development. The purpose of a 

development fee is to have new development pay for the impact to infrastructure instead of having it all 

paid for by taxpayers. Development fees are used to pay for infrastructure outside the developed area. 

In the context of flood prevention, development fees could be used to pay for flood-prevention 

infrastructure or adaptation strategies to prevent flooding in the developed area, or to mitigate the 

flood-related impacts on other areas that might be caused by the new development. 

Cost 

Development fees are a low-cost option for local governments. The local governments pay for 

developing and implementing the ordinances and administering the system. Developers pay the fees to 

pay for infrastructure associated with new development. Development fees typically only cover 

construction costs, while maintenance or operating expenses are usually funded through taxes. 

Effectiveness 

Development fees are an effective way for local governments to pay for new infrastructure to mitigate 

potential future impacts of coastal flooding brought about by new development. Thus, the effectiveness 

of the development fees depends on the success of the chosen infrastructure at mitigating flooding 

damage. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Not all local governments can enact development-fees because laws and enabling legislation for these 

fees vary by state. 25 

Special Considerations 

If development fees make the overall cost of development in a particular place higher than in 

neighboring areas, developers may choose to build in another area or decide not to build at all, which 

can further increase the effectiveness of the measure in terms of minimizing development in vulnerable 

areas. 

25 American Planning Association (2006). Planning and Urban Design Standards. 

A-21 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-20: Wetlands 

Wetlands are ecosystems that may be saturated with water during all or part of the year and are often 

found at the boundary between land and water. By absorbing flood waters, wetlands protect inland 

areas from flooding. Coastal wetlands in the United States have been estimated to provide up to $23.2 

billion annually in storm protection services.26 

Communities can take steps to conserve, enhance, restore, or create wetlands in their area. 

Restoration—returning a degraded or former wetland to its original condition—is typically easier and 

cheaper to implement than wetland creation, which involves converting either dry land or open water to 

a wetland. 

Cost 

Communities can engage in a variety of activities to conserve, create, enhance, or restore wetlands, and 

specific costs will vary depending on the scope of the project and local conditions. Land acquisition can 

be a significant upfront cost. Wetland restoration can cost between $3,500 and $80,000 per acre, 

excluding land costs, and wetland construction typically costs between $35,000 and $150,000 per acre, 

excluding land costs. 27 Communities usually face additional costs for planning, long-term management, 

and monitoring, but maintenance costs are typically very low. 

Effectiveness 

Wetlands reduce the risk of property damage and loss of life from flooding through a number of 

mechanisms. Wetlands act as natural reservoirs, storing flood waters and then slowly releasing them, 

delaying and attenuating peak flood flows. Wetlands also dissipate wave, wind, and storm surge energy 

through resistance provided by the wetland vegetation. Studies have found that a loss of one hectare 

(about 2.5 acres) of wetland corresponds to an average increase of $33,000 in storm damage from 

hurricanes.26 However, wetlands are less likely to be effective in mitigating the effects of very large flood 

events, particularly regional floods of long duration. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Construction of new wetlands may not be well-suited for highly developed areas, where there is often 

no land available or the land can be costly. 

Special Considerations 

Wetlands provide a number of other valuable services, including improving water quality, providing fish 

and wildlife habitats, and maintaining water supplies during drought periods. 

26 Anderson, Sharolyn J. and Kenneth Mulder (2008). “The value of coastal wetlands for hurricane 

protection.” Ambio 37(4): 241. 27 http://www.bnl.gov/erd/peconic/factsheet/wetlands.pdf 

A-22 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-21: Mangroves 

Mangroves are medium-sized trees and shrubs found in tropical and subtropical regions that grow in salt 

water environments. In the United States, mangroves are primarily found in Florida but also exist in 

other locations around the Gulf of Mexico. Florida's southwest coast supports one of the largest 

mangrove forests in the world. By acting as a buffer zone against waves and wind, mangrove forests can 

save lives and reduce storm-surge-related damage. 

Cost 

The cost of mangroves can vary widely depending on specific conditions. Land acquisition may be 

necessary to protect existing mangrove forests. If restoration is needed to maintain mangrove forests, 

the price of labor and the extent of necessary earth work will dramatically affect costs. In general, 

mangrove restoration has been estimated to cost between $2,150 and $81,000 per acre, excluding land 

costs. 28 

Effectiveness 

Mangroves can reduce storm surge levels by slowing the flow of water and reducing surface waves. 

Experts estimate that each kilometer of mangrove forest provides a 5- to 50-cm water level reduction. In 

addition, surface wind waves are expected to be reduced by more than 75 percent over 1 kilometer of 

mangroves.29, 30 However, some models indicate that mangrove forests may provide less protection 

against intense, slow-moving hurricanes. 

Barriers to Implementation 

Mangroves have a limited geographic range due to climate. The temperate climate found in most of the 

United States is not suitable for mangrove growth. 

Special Considerations 

Mangroves offer the additional benefits of nutrient retention and wastewater treatment; they support 

fisheries by serving as a breeding ground and serve as a home to a variety of other wildlife. 

28 http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/elpubs/pdf/vnrs3-2.pdf 29 http://coastalresilience.org/sites/default/files/resources/storm-surge-reduction-by-mangroves-report.pdf 30 http://conserveonline.org/workspaces/naturalcoastalprotection/documents/reports/view.html 

A-23 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-22: Oyster and Coral Reefs 

Reefs—underwater structures made by living creatures—can protect shoreline property from erosion 

and storm surges. Reefs absorb wave energy, acting as a natural breakwater, and stabilize bottom 

sediments. Reef restoration—expanding the size and number of reefs—can help communities protect 

shoreline property and infrastructure. 

In the United States, both coral and oyster reefs have been used to protect coastal areas. However, 

most coral reefs are found in tropical waters and have limited suitability along the coast of the United 

States. Oyster reefs, on the other hand, are common along much of the eastern seaboard. Reefs are 

built by adding material such as small bags of oyster shells, loose oyster or clam shells, riprap, or other 

suitable substances to the water. The material attracts live oyster larvae, which settle and create a live 

reef. 

Restoring coral reefs generally works in the same way; material is provided for corals to settle on. 

Limestone and concrete are commonly used as these substrate materials are appropriate for coral 

recruitment. . 

Cost 

Depending on size, constructing an oyster reef can cost between a few thousand and several million 

dollars. On average, oyster reef restoration costs about $100 to $150 per linear foot. 31 Oyster reefs have 

very low maintenance costs. Oyster reefs are extremely durable and may last for 50 years or longer. 

Effectiveness 

Reefs function as natural breakwaters that reduce the height and energy of waves hitting the shore. 

According to the Nature Conservancy, in Louisiana, two oyster reef restoration projects, with a total 

length of 3.6 miles, are expected to reduce wave height by 51 to 90 percent and wave energy by 76 to 

99 percent. 32 This reduces both shoreline erosion and storm surge flooding. Reefs are particularly 

effective against smaller events but may provide limited protection against erosion and coastal flooding 

during major storms.33 

Barriers to Implementation 

Reef restoration has been known to cause environmental problems. If done irresponsibly, restoration 

may introduce invasive species to the ecosystem, placing native species at risk. When constructing a reef 

it is important to take local conditions into account. Seafood safety concerns mean that oyster 

restoration is not allowed in some locations. 

31 Seachange Consulting (2011). Weighing Your Options: How to Protect Your Property from Shoreline Erosion: A 

Handbook for Estuarine Property Owners in North Carolina. North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. 32 http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/oyster-restoration-study-kroeger.pdf 33 http://water.epa.gov/type/oceb/cre/upload/CRE_Synthesis_1-09.pdf 

A-24 
What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Special Considerations 

Reef restoration offers a number of additional benefits beyond coastal protection. For example, reefs 

can improve water quality and help maintain a healthy coastal ecosystem, promoting commercial and 

recreational fishing, recreational boating, and tourism. 

A-25 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-23: Living Dunes 

Coastal dunes are sand deposits located on the land side of a beach. Dunes protect beaches from 

erosion and protect shoreline property from storm surges. Dunes are extremely fragile. If they are 

disturbed by human activity, such as trampling, vehicular traffic, and construction, they become 

unstable and susceptible to erosion. One of the most common and effective methods of stabilizing 

coastal dunes is to plant vegetation to create living dunes. Some communities also install fencing and/or 

use discarded Christmas trees to trap sand that ultimately creates new dunes. Building dune walkovers 

or designating footpaths can also limit damage from human traffic. 

Cost 

Creating living dunes is a relatively economical option and can be undertaken at the community level 

using widely available tools. Locally-appropriate vegetation can be obtained from nursery stocks or from 

nearby intact dune systems. The most commonly used species in dune transplantation are American 

beach grass, European beach grass, sea oats, and bitter panic grass. American beach grass is sold in 100-

stem bundles for approximately $35 to $55 per bundle. 34 The stems are planted two or three to a hole 

at 1- to 3-foot intervals, resulting in a cost of under $0.50 per square foot of dune. 35 Plantings can be 

done by hand or with a mechanical planter. 36 New plantings require periodic watering for the first few 

months and fertilization for up to two years. Decreased access to the beach due to planting vegetation 

can result in additional costs such as offsetting the loss in access by enhancing or maintaining other 

beach access points. 

Effectiveness 

Dune vegetation, which acts to stabilize loose sand, is the most reliable way to protect dunes from wind 

and waves. Dune plants are especially effective at trapping and holding windborne sand, promoting 

dune growth over time. Dune vegetation also decreases the wind velocity near the ground, reducing 

wind erosion at the sand surface. 37 Dune vegetation root networks can also help to stabilize the dune. 

Ultimately, the vegetation helps preserve dunes and enhances their ability to protect the coast from 

erosion and coastal flooding. Dunes are effective in preventing flooding up until the water-level increase 

exceeds the height of the dune, or until sufficient erosion occurs to cause the dune to collapse 

Barriers to Implementation 

Dunes can sometimes block views of the beach and projects to create new dunes often require 

landowners to cede some property rights for dune development. 

Special Considerations 

Special care must be taken in the selection of plant species to avoid introducing invasive species into the 

ecosystem. 

34 http://www.town.orleans.ma.us/pages/orleansma_parks/whgreport.pdf 35 http://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?id=87224&pt=2&p=88900 36 http://140.194.76.129/publications/eng-manuals/EM_1110-2-1100_vol/PartV/Part-V-Chap_7.pdf 37 http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/58856/1/2.5.Olafson.pdf 

A-26 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet A-24: Barrier Island Restoration 

Barrier islands are naturally occurring, narrow strips of land that run parallel to the coast. Barrier islands 

protect inland areas during severe weather events by reducing wind and wave energy and by mitigating 

storm surges. In many areas, however, barrier islands are eroding at extreme rates. In some places, 

barrier island shorelines are shrinking by up to 100 feet per year. 38 

Barrier island restoration projects are designed to protect and restore barrier island chains. Restoration 

projects may incorporate a variety of techniques, including using dredged material to increase island 

height and width, building hard structures to protect the island from erosion, and using sand-trapping 

fences to build and stabilize sand dunes. 

Cost 

Barrier island restoration is a large-scale undertaking and can cost tens or hundreds of millions of 

dollars. For example, restoring East Grand Terre Island in Louisiana, which included restoring 2.8 miles 

and 620 acres of barrier shoreline and 450 acres of marsh by dredging 3.3 million cubic yards of offshore 

material, cost $31 million.39 In addition, barrier island restoration projects require periodic maintenance 

to ensure resiliency. 

Effectiveness 

Barrier islands protect coastal communities from damage caused by waves and storm surge. Studies 

have indicated that the loss of barrier islands can increase wave height by as much as 700 percent 

during fair-weather forecasts.40 Recent observations following hurricanes have shown that areas behind 

restored barrier islands weather storms much better than nearby areas. 

41 

Barriers to Implementation 

Cost is typically the largest barrier to restoring barrier islands. 

Special Considerations 

In many cases, barrier islands help shelter wetlands, so restoring barrier islands can indirectly preserve 

many of the benefits of coastal wetlands. 

38 http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/barrier-islands/ 39 http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2012/01/louisiana_releases_50-year_blu.html 40 Stone, Gregory W. and Randolph A. McBride (1998). “Louisiana barrier islands and their importance in wetland 

protection: forecasting shoreline change and subsequent response of wave climate.” Journal of Coastal Research 

14(3): 900–915. 41 http://www.habitat.noaa.gov/abouthabitat/barrierislands.html 

A-27 
 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix B: Approaches and Tools for Monetizing 

Impacts 

Fact Sheet B-1: FEMA Hazus-MH Flood Model 

The FEMA Hazus-MH Flood Model uses GIS technology to monetize losses from flooding for a variety of 

different impacts. Hazus can operate at three levels depending on the needs and expertise of the user. A 

Level 1 analysis uses default data and models. In a Level 2 analysis, the user can supply custom data, 

such as depth-damage curves and infrastructure valuation, to perform a more accurate and detailed 

analysis. In a Level 3 analysis, the user can import the highest level of custom data, including hydrologic 

data, to produce the most precise and sophisticated, albeit most resource-intensive, analysis. This tool is 

not specifically tailored to address sea-level rise; however, using scenarios developed in Step 1, this tool 

can monetize losses for user-provided levels of flooding. 

Impacts Monetized 

Primary Impacts: Residential building damage, commercial building damage, special facility damage 

(potable water, wastewater treatment, oil, natural gas, electric power, and communication systems), 

essential facility damage (hospitals, fire, police, schools, universities), building content loss, vehicle 

damage, bridge damage, and crop loss. 

Secondary Impacts: Relocation costs, business interruption loss through wage loss, rental income loss, 

and displaced households (measured quantitatively—not monetized), and debris cleanup (from 

damaged structures only). 

Indirect Impacts: Demand and supply of products, change in employment, and change in tax revenues. 

Level of Effort and Expertise Needed 

This varies from a Level 1 to Level 3 analysis. To perform a Level 1 analysis, someone unfamiliar with the 

tool could use it after reading the user guide or participating in some basic training. However, it is 

recommended that someone with more experience using Hazus assist in performing Level 2 and 3 

analyses. The Hazus user guide estimates it takes about one to six months to collect input data for a 

Level 2 analysis and six months to two years to collect the appropriate input data for a Level 3 analysis. 

Process to Perform This Approach 

Step 1: Download the free model: Set up an account by calling 1-877-336-2627 and access it online 

by visiting the FEMA Map Service Center (MSC) at msc.fema.gov. 

Step 2: Determine the level of analysis you would like to perform and provide someone to train to 

use the tool or find someone with the appropriate level of expertise. 

Step 3: Gather or create the necessary input data for your community to run the tool. This is 

minimal for Level 1 and just includes a digital elevation model, which is available through NOAA’s 

B-1 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Digital Coast or you can create your own. Level 2 and 3 analyses require collecting a longer list of 

custom inputs that require a much higher level of effort to locate. 

Step 4: Run the model. See the user manual and technical manual for FEMA’s Hazus-MH Flood 

Model for more details. 

How This Approach Fits Into the Framework of This Guide 

This is a very powerful tool, particularly for those performing a holistic approach to monetizing damage 

to a wide variety of infrastructure for a given water-level increase. This monetization approach makes 

less sense if you are monetizing damage for a few priority infrastructure elements because it requires 

that extra resources be used to monetize damages for the rest of the community, which will not change 

as a result of moving or reinforcing one piece of infrastructure. 

This comprehensive tool assesses the depth of water around infrastructure, as is done in Step 1, Task 3, 

and monetizes impacts of your no-action scenario, as is done in Step 3, Task 2. It can also assess the 

depth of water around infrastructure in your action scenario if you provide the new water-level increase 

associated with implementing your action scenario, as is done in Step 2, Task 2. Finally, if you are 

performing a Level 2 or 3 analysis, you can provide custom data, including new depth-damage curves for 

reinforced infrastructure, or updated GIS infrastructure maps for a relocated or raised structure to 

monetize the damages in your action scenario (as is also done in Step 3, Task 2). This approach could be 

used to perform an impact assessment or risk assessment. 

Limitations 

•	 Default data are older (early 2000s) and incomplete for performing Level 1 analyses. 

•	 Processing time can be several days, and custom data collection can take many months when 

performing Level 2 and 3 analyses. 

Key Resources 

Case Study: 

•	 The Role of Land Use in Adaptation to Increased Precipitation and Flooding: A Case Study in 

Wisconsin’s Lower Fox River Basin provides an example of Level 2 FEMA Hazus-MH Flood Model 

analysis estimating future losses from flooding in the Lower Fox River Basin of Wisconsin. This 

Resources For the Future paper also provides some of the pros, cons, and additional insight 

involved in using this tool to monetize projected flooding losses. 

B-2 
 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet B-2: COastal Adaptation to Sea level rise Tool (COAST) 

The New England Environmental Finance Center (NEEFC) developed the COastal Adaptation to Sea level 

rise Tool (COAST), which measures physical damage (based on real estate costs) from storm surge and 

sea-level rise. COAST uses three-dimensional, structure-level outputs to show building-level damage and 

to break down the losses based on the contribution of storm surge and sea-level rise. For example, 

Figure B-1 shows how three-dimensional, color-coded outputs are used to present the extent of damage 

at the building level. This tool incorporates both baseline losses and losses after implementing 

hypothetical action scenarios. 

Figure B-1. COAST Three-Dimensional Building Damage Output 

Impacts Monetized 

Primary Impacts: Residential building damage, commercial building damage, special facility damage 

(potable water, wastewater treatment, oil, natural gas, electric power, and communication systems), 

essential facility damage (hospitals, fire, police, schools, and universities), and building content loss. 

B-3 
 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Level of Effort and Expertise Needed 

Some users will have success with the Web-based tool without prior experience, while others may need 

expert help; however, you will likely want some GIS expertise to help you obtain the necessary input 

data. 

Process to Perform This Approach 

Step 1: Visit the New England Environmental Finance Center website to find the free Web-based 

tool. 

Step 2: Obtain the necessary input data. This typically includes a base land-elevation dataset 

defining the area, a vector layer defining the assets and asset values, depth-damage function (DDF) 

for assets (see Key Resources for Fact Sheet B-3 for some sources of depth-damage curves), 

probability exceedance curves for storm surge, sea-level rise scenarios, and adaptation strategy. 

Step 3: Run the tool. 

How This Approach Fits Into the Framework of This Guide 

This is a very powerful tool, particularly for those performing a holistic approach where you are trying to 

monetize damage to a wide variety of infrastructure. If you are comfortable using the tool, it can also be 

quite useful for the priority infrastructure approach. This comprehensive tool helps you assess the depth 

of water around infrastructure, as is done in Step 1, Task 3; reassess the depth of water around 

infrastructure based on your action scenario, as is done in Step 2, Task 2; and monetize the impact of 

flooding in your action and no-action scenarios, as is done in Step 3, Task 2. It is also tailored to 

incorporate SLR scenarios and different storm types, allows you to input the cost of your action 

scenario, and provides some summary cost and benefit outputs, which help you compile your net 

benefits in Step 4. This approach could be used to perform an impact assessment or risk assessment. 

Limitations 

•	 Limited to monetizing structural impact damage and building content loss. 

Key Resources 

Case Study: 

•	 COAST in Action: 2012 Projects from Maine and New Hampshire provides some case studies of 

how the use of COAST is integrated into local decision-making for some Maine and New 

Hampshire towns. This includes further information about data requirements, outputs, and 

limitations of the tool. 

B-4 
 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet B-3: Overlay Infrastructure-Level Economic Data on Flood-Depth 

Data 

This approach involves overlaying economic data about infrastructure values on data about the depth of 

flooding in Step 1, Task 3. For the holistic approach, you can do this with GIS flood and economic data 

layers, which is the same basic methodology used in existing comprehensive tools (FEMA Hazus and 

COAST). For the priority infrastructure approach, you follow the same basic framework; however, you 

can often do this without GIS data. This approach involves determining the depth of water around your 

assets, determining how badly the water damages your assets, and determining the value of your assets. 

This general three-step approach can also be used to estimate the damage to your community’s 

vehicles. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) provides resources for determining the number of 

vehicles, distribution of vehicles, and value of vehicles in a community. 

Impacts Monetized 

Primary Impacts: Residential building damage, commercial building damage, special facility damage, 

essential facility damage, building content loss, and vehicle damage. 

Level of Effort and Expertise Needed 

The holistic approach requires a very high level of effort and extensive GIS experience. The priority 

infrastructure is much less time-consuming and can typically be performed without GIS experience 

because it only requires elevation data of your selected infrastructure. 

Process to Perform This Approach 

Step 1: Determine the height of the water around your assets. 

Option A: holistic approach 

Develop a GIS flood layer containing information about exposed infrastructure and the depth of 

flooding around each infrastructure for each water-level increase selected. See the NOAA Mapping 

Coastal Inundation Primer for more detailed information about creating these mapping layers. 

Option B: priority infrastructure approach 

Determine the height of water relative to the base of your infrastructure for a given level of 

flooding. This typically just requires a digital elevation map or elevation data about your
 

infrastructure, as is outlined in Step 1, Task 3.
 

Step 2: Determine how badly the water damages your assets. 

Create or find depth-damage curves—functions that show the percent of damage to your assets—to 

determine the relationship between flooding height relative to the base of the infrastructure and 

percent of damage relative to the total value of the asset. The holistic and priority infrastructure 

approaches involve slightly different processes for this step: 

Option A: holistic approach 

Consider using generic depth-damage curves developed by USACE to minimize the effort in creating 

B-5 
 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

custom curves for your many types of buildings. The “Key Resources” below link to a variety of 

depth-damage curves for a range of building types, vehicles, and building content. 

Option B: priority infrastructure approach 

Consider consulting with local building experts or people familiar with the building content to 

generate your own curves to provide more precise data. For example, you may have a lot of 

expensive equipment in the basement, or your building may be relatively flood-proof, which can 

dramatically affect the depth-damage curves. 

Step 3: Determine the value of your assets. 

Obtain data with information about the value of each building. Check with your town or city 

assessor’s office to see if you can obtain useful data on the assessed value of buildings. If assessed 

values are not available, check to see if your community can gain access to building or building 

content insured values that could also be used. You can calculate the damage amount by multiplying 

the asset value by the percent damage at a given level of flooding that you obtained from the depthdamage curve. The format of the desired data will differ slightly between the holistic and priority 

infrastructure approach. 

Option A: holistic approach 

Work with your GIS expert to obtain an economic data layer that can be integrated with your 

flooding layer. 

Option B: priority infrastructure approach 

Work closely with people familiar with the infrastructure to obtain detailed information about the 

infrastructure and content value. 

How This Approach Fits Into the Framework of This Guide 

This is an alternative approach to using comprehensive tools in determining the monetized costs of 

buildings and building content (Step 3, Task 2). This general three-step process is applicable to both the 

holistic approach and the priority infrastructure approach. It can be used to perform an impact 

assessment or risk assessment. 

Limitations 

•	 Infrastructure-level valuation data may be difficult to obtain, particularly in a useful format 

compatible with GIS use. Ensure that you can obtain such data before becoming too invested 

with this approach. 

Key Resources 

Depth-Damage Curve Library: 

•	 USACE’s Generic Depth-Damage Relationships for Residential Structures with Basements 

•	 USACE’s Generic Depth-Damage Relationships for Residential Structures with No Basements 

•	 USACE’s Analysis of Nonresidential Content Value and Depth-Damage Data 

B-6 
 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

•	 USACE’s Depth-Damage Relationships for Structures, Contents, and Vehicles and Content-toStructure Value Ratios (CSVR) in Support of the Donaldsonville to the Gulf, Louisiana, Feasibility 

Study 

•	 USACE’s Generic Depth-Damage Relationships for Vehicles 

B-7 
 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet B-4: Use General Economic and Flood Data to Estimate Primary 

Damage 

This approach uses the same basic three-step approach as monetizing infrastructure-level data; 

however, it provides some lower-resource alternatives if you don’t have appropriate infrastructure-level 

data or are just looking for a quicker means for developing a preliminary estimate of the monetized 

damage impacts. For example, you may not have data showing the height of water around your 

infrastructure, which would require you to estimate a depth-damage function, or you may not have 

infrastructure-level economic valuation data, which might require you to apply a generic economic value 

such as average building value per square foot or average price per building. Take advantage of your 

available economic expertise to help you consider and perform alternatives, but remember that more 

estimates and generic data typically yield less informative and compelling results. 

Impacts Measured 

Primary Impacts: Residential building damage, commercial building damage, special facility damage, 

essential facility damage, and building content loss. 

Level of Effort and Expertise Needed 

The level of effort varies depending on how detailed your available data are; however, the level of effort 

required is substantially less than the infrastructure-level approach. Some GIS experience may be 

necessary, and economic expertise is recommended for this approach. 

Process to Perform This Approach 

Step 1: Determine the height of the water around your assets, or at least identify exposed assets. 

Develop a GIS flood map containing information about which infrastructure elements are flooded, 

and preferably the depth of flooding around each infrastructure for each water-level increase 

selected. See NOAA’s Mapping Coastal Inundation Primer for more detailed information about 

creating these mapping layers. An even lower-resource approach would just be to estimate the 

number or percent of buildings that are inundated from a quick view of your flood map. 

Step 2: Determine how badly the water damages your assets. 

Create or find depth-damage curves—functions that show the percent of damage to your assets (in 

this case building structure or content)—to determine the relationship between water-level height 

and percent of damage relative to the total value of the asset. Consider using generic depth-damage 

curves developed by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) (see “Key Resources”) for many 

different building types. If your flood map does not contain information regarding the depth of 

flooding around infrastructure, you may want to try to estimate the average flood depth around 

buildings and apply the appropriate depth-damage percent to all buildings. 

Step 3: Determine the value of your assets. 

Obtain generic economic data about the value of your assets (e.g., average price per square foot, 

average price per building) that makes sense to apply to your flood map. Only use an estimate of the 

price per square foot if you can assume how many square feet of the building are flooded. It will 

B-8 
 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

increase the accuracy of your estimate if you can obtain more specific values for different building 

types, such as the average price per commercial, residential, and industrial building. 

How This Approach Fits Into the Framework of This Guide 

This might be a preliminary approach to approximating monetized damage to infrastructure using the 

holistic approach. If you are performing the priority infrastructure approach, however, you should 

probably spend the time finding infrastructure-level data. This approach could be appropriate to 

monetize the damage of a few water-level increases if you are performing an impact assessment; 

however, if you are spending the resources to perform a risk assessment, you would probably want to 

use a more robust approach to monetize primary impacts. 

Limitations 

•	 Accuracy: this is more of a “back of the envelope” approach that is only recommended for 

preliminary assessments or in the absence of more specific data. 

Key Resources 

Depth-Damage Curve Library: 

•	 USACE’s Generic Depth-Damage Relationships for Residential Structures with Basements 

•	 USACE’s Generic Depth-Damage Relationships for Residential Structures with No Basements 

•	 USACE’s Analysis of Nonresidential Content Value and Depth-Damage Data 

•	 USACE’s Depth-Damage Relationships for Structures, Contents, and Vehicles and Content-toStructure Value Ratios (CSVR) in Support of the Donaldsonville to the Gulf, Louisiana, Feasibility 

Study 

B-9 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet B-5: Monetize Business Interruption Loss 

Business interruption loss is typically caused by inaccessible roads, lack of essential utilities, or damage 

to buildings or equipment. The basic approach for determining the monetized loss is to estimate how 

long a business is inoperable and multiply that by an economic indicator of the business’s output such as 

wages or sales. While this might be an oversimplification, it provides a general approach to approximate 

business loss without becoming overly resource intensive. Work with your economist to determine how 

detailed and robust you want to make this analysis. It is worth noting that the FEMA Hazus-MH Flood 

Model monetizes business interruption loss through wage loss if you choose to use that comprehensive 

tool. 

Impacts Measured 

Secondary Impacts: Business interruption loss. 

Level of Effort and Expertise Needed 

The level of effort increases as you try to assess infrastructure (business)-level losses. You will need 

economic expertise for this approach. 

Process to Perform This Approach 

Step 1: Determine the amount of time a business is inoperable. 

For floods where substantial building damage is expected, the loss of business due to damage or 

destroyed buildings and equipment may be a substantial component of business interruption. See 

Table 14.12 of the FEMA Hazus-MH Flood Model technical manual for the expected restoration time 

of various building types due to flooding. This can help you estimate how long a business may be out 

of operation after a flood event. 

It is also possible that the primary business interruption may be caused by inaccessible roads or lack 

of electricity or water while crews are working to get utilities back up. In this case, you might expect 

businesses to be inoperable for several days to more than a week while the floodwaters retreat, 

utilities get back up, and businesses clean up from the flood. In this case, you may want to generate 

some more general assumptions, perhaps using data from historic storms, for the amount of time 

you can expect your businesses to be inoperable. 

Step 2: Determine the wages or output of a business. 

In Table 14.14 of the Hazus-MH Flood Model technical manual, FEMA provides data about the 

expected wages, income, and sales output per building type per square foot. You can multiply any of 

these variables by the number of days a business is inoperable to estimate business loss. 

Additionally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and 

the Census Bureau County Business Patterns provide data on the number of establishments and 

employees and total wages by industry type. The BLS data are released sooner and offered at the 

county level each quarter of the year, while the Census data are annual but offer the advantage of 

being released at the ZIP Code and county level. You could multiply the wage data by the length of 

B-10 
 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

time a certain number or percent of businesses in each industry is inoperable to estimate lost wages 

due to business interruption. 

How This Approach Fits Into the Framework of This Guide 

This helps you monetize one of the major secondary impacts (business operation loss) in Step 3, Task 2 

of this framework. 

Limitations 

•	 The economy is very complex, and in the longer term, businesses may start to shift production 

to neighboring facilities or workers may find new work, which can often offset some of the 

business loss impacts. 

B-11 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet B-6: Non-Market Valuation Methodologies 

These methodologies measure the value of goods, services, or states of nature not traded on the 

market. Many of these non-market valuation studies require implementing surveys or gathering 

substantial data, which is one reason why many environmental impacts, other costs, and benefits are 

often only considered qualitatively. The methodologies are described below; however, the processes for 

performing the methodologies are not outlined. Be sure to consult your experienced economist if you 

choose to perform any of these methodologies. 

Description 

Travel Cost Method: Uses travel costs such as hotel, transportation, and entrance fees to approximate 

the value of a coastal resource. This also typically includes a survey of a sample of people who have used 

the resource to estimate the difference between what the consumer actually paid for the resource and 

what they would be willing to pay. 

Hedonic Price Method: Models how the price of a private good, such as real estate, relates to the 

attributes that might affect price, such as beach proximity and flooding resilience. To use this method in 

the context of coastal flooding, you would look at how one attribute (e.g., an elevated house better 

protected from coastal flooding) would change the price of the house. 

Willingness to Pay: Surveys how much people say they would be willing to pay for an environmental 

improvement or to avoid a decrease in environmental quality. 

Avoided Cost Methodology: Estimates the economic value of an environmental resource or service 

based on additional costs that would be placed on society if the resource or service no longer existed. 

Impacts Measured 

These methodologies can be used to measure just about any environmental cost, other cost, or benefit. 

Level of Effort and Expertise Needed 

These methodologies typically involve somewhat resource-intensive surveys or data collection and 

would require someone with a high level of economic expertise. 

How These Approaches Fit Into the Framework of This Guide 

These methodologies help you monetize environmental impacts, other costs, and benefits in Step 3, 

Task 2 of this framework. 

Key Resources 

•	 NOAA’s Introduction to Economics for Coastal Managers further explains many of these
 

approaches and provides several case studies.
 

•	 The National Ocean Economics Program’s Environmental & Recreational (Non-Market) Values— 

Research Methodologies provides additional details about these and many other non-market 

valuation techniques. 

B-12 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet B-7: Benefits Transfer 

Benefits transfer is an approach that borrows economic values from one study to apply to your own 

parallel situation. It is a reasonably low-resource method for monetizing impacts because you are not 

implementing the methodology for collecting the local data; however, it typically provides less 

informative and compelling data than gathering data specific to your local situation. 

Impacts Measured 

This approach can be used to measure just about any type of primary impact, secondary impact, 

environmental impact, other cost, or benefit. It is best used to monetize smaller impacts that you might 

otherwise not have the resources to monetize at all; therefore, you might want to avoid using this 

method to monetize your most substantial impacts. 

Level of Effort and Expertise Needed 

Benefits transfer typically requires a low level of effort. It should include someone with some basic 

economic understanding. 

Process to Perform This Approach 

Step 1: Find existing studies monetizing the specific type of impact you want to monetize in your 

community. 

Step 2: Evaluate how well the studies transfer to your situation. Try to find one with many
 

similarities to your local conditions.
 

Step 3: Evaluate the quality of the study from a research and methodology perspective. 

Step 4: Use the previous two steps to identify the best study. Consider tailoring the value to your 

community by adjusting the monetized value based on differences in the area of study and your 

community. 

How This Approach Fits Into the Framework of This Guide 

This helps you monetize just about any impact for which you find it too resource intensive to create your 

own study in Step 3, Task 2 of this framework. 

Limitations 

The more similar the study’s local conditions are to your own community, the more reliable the estimate 

will be. However, it is less informative and compelling than gathering local data. 

Key Resources 

•	 Introduction to Economics for Coastal Managers includes some case studies using benefits 

transfer. 

•	 The National Ocean Economics Program’s benefit transfer website provides additional details 

about this methodology as well as several case studies. 

B-13 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Fact Sheet B-8: Input-Output Models to Measure Indirect and Induced Impacts 

Indirect impacts are a measure of the value of the inputs used by firms that are called on to produce 

additional goods and services for those firms first impacted by coastal flooding. For example, if hotels 

are damaged and inoperable for a period of time due to coastal flooding, firms that normally provide 

food and other supplies to the hotel will not be doing so, while some construction firms may increase 

their output by fixing the building. The indirect impacts are these increases or decreases in output of the 

firms that service the entities affected by coastal flooding. 

Induced effects are related to individuals and businesses that receive added or reduced income as a 

result of local spending by firms and plants that are affected by the direct and indirect impacts of coastal 

flooding. For example, coastal flooding may result in reduced tourism for a period of time and negatively 

affect local hotels. Employees of these hotels might receive decreased pay as a result, and the induced 

impacts are the reduced sales, jobs, and outputs in the local economy as a result of less tourist money 

flowing in. 

Typically, indirect and induced impacts are relatively small compared to the primary impacts of coastal 

flooding; thus, based on your resource availability, you may choose to consider this type of modeling as 

a supplementary type of analysis if the results are still very unclear after monetizing the primary 

impacts, secondary impacts, environmental impacts, other costs, and benefits. The primary tools that 

can be used to perform this input-output indirect and induced modeling include the Impact Analysis for 

Planning (IMPLAN) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Multipliers from the Regional InputOutput Modeling System (RIMS II). 

Impacts Measured 

Indirect and Induced Impacts 

Level of Effort and Expertise Needed 

These models require a high level of effort, need to be purchased, and require someone with economic 

modeling experience. 

Process to Perform This Approach 

Step 1: Identify someone with expertise in using these input-output models. 

Step 2: Purchase and download the models. The links are shown in the “Key Resources” section 

below. 

Step 3: Run the models. Consult user guides and your available economic expertise accordingly. 

How This Approach Fits Into the Framework of This Guide 

These input-output models help you monetize indirect and induced impacts in addition to the types 

impacts monetized Step 3, Task 2 of this guide. 

B-14 
 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Limitations 

These models are technical and resource-intensive. Depending on the results of your analysis, the 

additional monetized impacts from using these models may or may not impact the ultimate decision. 

Thus, consider using these tools for supplementary analysis when resources allow. 

Key Resources 

• IMPLAN: Further information and how to order. 

• BEA’s RIMS II: Further information, how to order, and access to the user guide. 

B-15 
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners May 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

United States Case Studies 

Climate Change and New England Used GIS to model flood elevation versus flooded area curve, and used Grey Infrastructure, 

Coastal Flooding in Metro bootstrapping of historical sea-level data and Monte Carlo simulation to Seawalls, Metropolitan 

Boston: Impacts and Areas, Inundation, project sea levels and impacts for the next century. Used per linear 

Adaptation Strategies42 

meter cost from U Property Damage, GIS, .S. Army Corps of Engineers to estimate cost of Land Use Management, resilient infrastructure. 

Climate Change, Sea- Journal: Climate Change Level Rise •	 Performed risk-based analysis to show the cumulative 100-year 

economic impacts on developed areas from increased storm surge 

due to sea-level rise. 

•	 Concluded that it is advantageous to use expensive structural 

protection in highly developed areas and land management 

approaches in less developed or environmentally sensitive areas. 

•	 Determined that approximately 40 percent of the residences in the 

100-year floodplain and 25 percent in the 100- and 500-year 

floodplains get flooded during an event in the Boston Metro area. 

•	 Determined that damages averaged between $7,000 and $18,000, 

depending on location. 

42 Kirshen, Paul, K. Knee, and M. Ruth. (2008). Climate Change and Coastal Flooding in Metro Boston: Impacts and Adaptation Strategies. Climatic Change 

90:453–473. 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

COAST in Action: 2012 

Projects from New 

Hampshire and Maine43 

New England 

Environmental Finance 

Center 

New England Used the COastal Adaptation to Sea-Level Rise Tool (COAST) 

• Estimates the economic costs and benefits of adaptation— 

specifically regarding the use of sea walls—under various sea-level 

rise and adaptation scenarios in several New England towns. 

• Assessed impacts of three sea-level rise scenarios (none, low, and 

high). 

• Includes detailed estimates from architectural engineering firms 

broken down by labor and equipment. 

• Assumed a discount rate of 3.5 percent, or 1 percent higher than 

projected inflation. 

Sea-Level Rise, Storm 

Surge, Inundation, Grey 

Infrastructure, Flood 

Walls 

43 Merrill, S., P. Kirshen, D. Yakovleff, S. Lloyd, C. Keeley, and B. Hill. (2012). COAST in Action: 2012 Projects from New Hampshire and Maine. New England 

Environmental Finance Center Series Report #12-05. Portland, Maine. 

C-2 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

Simplified Method for New England Used scenario-based risk assessment based on developing exceedance Beach Erosion, Beach 

Scenario-Based Risk curves of flood elevations. This methodology was incorporated into the Nourishment, COAST 

Assessment Adaptation more user-friendly Coastal Adaptation to Sea level rise Tool (COAST). tool 

Planning in the Coastal 

Zone44 

•	 Investigated beach nourishment as a mitigation option for sea-level 

rise and beach erosion. 

Journal: Climate Change •	 Concluded that beach nourishment up to the present 100-year flood 

elevation is estimated to cost $3,280 per linear meter ($1,000 per 

linear foot). 

•	 Assumes that 75 percent of the nourished beach must be redone 

every 10 years. 

•	 Calculated estimates of flood damages to buildings and contents 

using the generic depth-damage relationships for residential 

structures with basements from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 

which are based on building replacement values derived from 

assessors’ tables. 

•	 COAST is intended for local and regional planners, municipal 

officials, university extension agents, and other decision-makers to 

help them understand the potential economic impacts of different 

scenarios of sea-level rise and the associated costs of different 

adaptation strategies. 

44 Kirshen, Paul, et al. (2012). Simplified method for scenario-based risk assessment adaptation planning in the coastal zone. Climatic Change 1–13. 

C-3 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

Assessing Future Risk: Mid-Atlantic Used hazard analysis tools such as FEMA’s HAZUS tool, USGS’s Storm Surge, Sea-Level 

Rise, Exposure Index, 

GIS, Publicly Accessible 

Tools 

Quantifying the Effects of asymmetric mapping tool, storm surge impact zone developed via 

by 2080. 

Risk Increase to Mid-Atlantic Used the FEMA flood insurance map to identify vulnerable areas of the Sea-Level Rise, Storm 

Infrastructure Due to Sea city. Used total costs from past category 1–4 storms, and scaled benefit Surge, Hurricanes, 

Level Rise. Climate of mitigation options based on asset density in the New York City Metropolitan Area 

Sea Level Rise on Storm 

Surge Risk for the 

Southern Shores of Long 

Island, New York45 

Journal: Natural Hazards 

National Hurricane Center's SLOSH model and builds upon NOAA’s 

Community Vulnerability Assessment Tool (CVAT) methodology. 

• Followed a risk assessment approach that integrated and expanded 

on the functionality of readily available, low-cost, or free, frequently 

used tools. 

• Outlined steps for measuring and mapping exposure, vulnerability, 

and overall risk from a category 3 storm surge in Suffolk County on 

Long Island, New York. 

• Examined elevated risk when factoring sea-level rise as projected 

Change and a Global City: metropolitan area. 

An Assessment of the 

Metropolitan East Coast • Provided a general risk assessment of the potential damage of Region46 

category 1–4 hurricanes that could hit New York over the next 100 

years. 

Columbia Earth Institute for • Looked at overall insured value of New York City, used total losses 

the U. S. Global Change from past storms in other areas, and projected sea-level rise to 

Research Program estimate what losses would be in New York for a comparable storm. 

•	 Evaluated types of grey infrastructure, such as sea walls and 

dykes, and also weighed land-use management and retreat as 

viable mitigation options. 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

45 Shepard, Christine C., et al. (2011). Assessing Future Risk: Quantifying the Effects of Sea Level Rise on Storm Surge Risk for the Southern Shores of Long
 

Island, New York. Natural Hazards 1–19.
 46 Jacob, K. H., N. Edelblum, and J. Arnold. (2000). Risk Increase to Infrastructure Due to Sea Level Rise. Climate Change and a Global City: An Assessment of
 

the Metropolitan East Coast (MEC) Region.
 

C-4 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

Measuring the Impacts of 

Climate Change on North 

Carolina Coastal 

Resources47 

National Commission on 

Energy Policy 

Eastern Seaboard Used high-resolution topographic LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) 

data, MAGICC/SCENGEN Global Climate Model, the hurricane wind 

speed model (HURRECON), property values data from North Carolina 

county tax offices, and other available GIS data. 

Used hedonic property model, nested logic demand models, NLOGIT 

econometric software, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and 

Marine Recreational Fishery Statistics Survey (MRFSS) willingness to 

pay surveys, and extrapolated from data collected from past storm 

events. 

Used U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "rule-of-thumb" of 1 cubic yard per 

running foot of beach to estimate cost to replace each foot of eroding 

beach, at an average cost of $6 per cubic yard for East Coast barrier 

beaches in 2004 dollars. 

• Assessed inundation and storm surge vulnerability for New 

Hanover, Dare, Carteret, and Bertie Counties of North Carolina. 

• Estimated potential decrease in residential property values, lost 

recreation and tourism income, and costs of business interruption, 

including the agriculture, forestry, and commercial fisheries 

industries. 

• Estimated a potential loss of nearly 50 percent in recreational 

revenues in 2080 due to beach erosion. 

• Concluded that the economic impacts of sea-level rise on these 

four coastal North Carolina counties could be significant if not 

mitigated. 

• Concluded that annual beach nourishment costs to mitigate sealevel rise from 2004 to 2080 is $348 million per year when 

discounted at a 2-percent rate. 

Green Infrastructure, 

Inundation, Storm Surge, 

Sea-Level Rise, Beach 

Erosion, Hedonic 

Property Model, Nested 

Logic Demand Model, 

Willingness-to-Pay 

Surveys, Beach 

Nourishment 

47 Bin, Okmyung, Chris Dumas, Ben Poulter, and John Whitehead. (2007). Measuring the Impacts of Climate Change on North Carolina Coastal Resources: Final 

Report. National Commission on Energy Policy. 

C-5 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

Estimating the Vulnerability Southeast United Used m Vulnerability Index, Sea- ulti-attribute utility theory(MAUT) to formulate a hurricane 

of U.S. Coastal Areas to States Level Rise, Climate vulnerability index (HVI) using seven indicators: population, number of Hurricane Damage48 Change, Storm Surge, housing units, house value, probability of hurricane strike, building code Hurricanes, Event effectiveness, building age, and vulnerability to sea-level rise. Used 2000 

Francis Marion University U.S. Census data for population and housing values. Probability, Grey 

Quality Enhancement Plan Infrastructure, Green 

Infrastructure •	 Calculated an HVI to rank the susceptibility of coastal areas to 

hurricane damage and provided necessary equations. 

•	 Ranked 11 U.S. counties in terms of vulnerability, with Miami-Dade 

ranking the most vulnerable. 

•	 Identified the top 10 U.S. counties in terms of cumulative exposure 

in coastal Florida (6), North Carolina (3), and Louisiana (1). 

•	 Identified three key elements—the level of exposure, the physical 

susceptibility to the hurricane, and the frequency and intensity of 

hurricanes—that contribute to the degree to which communities 

experience hurricane damage. 

•	 Considered wetlands, levees, sea walls, and storm-resilient 

construction as viable infrastructure options. 

• Stated that coastal Louisiana wetlands provided $452 acre/year in 

storm reduction benefits.
 

An Adaptive Regional	 Gulf of Mexico
 Uses the Adaptive Regional Input-Output (ARIO) Model to estimate Hurricane Katrina, InputInput-Output Model and its indirect costs. Also provides a methodology for converting national-level Output Models, Storm 

Assessment of the the ARIO model. 

Journal: Risk Analysis
 

of the economy of Louisiana to the landfall of Katrina.
 

specific to, inundation. 

Application to the 

Economic Cost of Katrina49 

BEA input-output tables to regional-level input-output tables for use in 

• Derived regional-level input-output tables from Bureau of Economic 

Analysis national-level input-output tables to simulate the response 

• Considers damage from Katrina as a whole—primarily from, but not 

Surge 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

48 Pompe, Jeffrey and Jennifer Haluska. (2011). Estimating the Vulnerability of U.S. Coastal Areas to Hurricane Damage.
 49 Hallegatte, S. (2008). An adaptive regional input-output model and its application to the assessment of the economic cost of Katrina, Risk Analysis.
 

C-6 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

The Socio-Economic 

Impact of Sea Level Rise in 

the Galveston Bay 

Region50 

Environmental Defense 

Fund 

Gulf of Mexico Used FEMA HAZUS Multi-Hazard MR3 ArcGIS Extension. 

• Illustrated the impact that climate change will have on communities 

in the Galveston Bay region using two scenarios of sea-level rise: 

0.69 meters and 1.5 meters. 

• Estimated impact on displaced populations; residential structures; 

industrial facilities, hazardous waste, Superfund, and solid waste 

sites; water treatment plants; and building-related economic losses. 

• Found that, under the 1.5 meter scenario, almost 99,000 

households would be displaced and more than 75,000 structures 

impacted in the region. 

• Did not estimate the impact on municipal and county governments, 

as they deal with infrastructure loss, moving populations, and 

potentially decreasing tax base. 

• Looked only at the losses assuming no mitigation is performed. 

Gulf of Mexico, 

Inundation, Storm Surge, 

Hurricanes, Sea-Level 

Rise 

The Role of Land Use in 

Adaptation to Increased 

Precipitation and Flooding: 

A Case Study in 

Wisconsin’s Lower Fox 

River Basin51 

Resources for the Future 

Great Lakes Used HAZUS and national databases of the inventory of structures at 

the census block level from the U.S. Bureau of the Census and Dun & 

Bradstreet to estimate depth damage curves, debris generation, indirect 

losses (such as loss of income or relocation expenses), and 

displacement of people. 

• Examined flooding losses and mitigation benefits for the Lower Fox 

River basin from central W isconsin to Green Bay. 

• Investigated land-use options as an alternative to traditional grey 

infrastructure mitigation. 

• Considered traditional grey infrastructure such as reservoirs, 

levees, flood walls, and dams, as well as land-use regulations for 

increasing wetland areas and removing or mitigating the influence 

of drainage ditches in agricultural lands. 

• Estimated losses, but not benefits, of mitigation options. 

• Focused primarily on regulating land use as a mitigation option. 

Land Use, Inundation, 

Water Quality, Great 

Lakes, W etlands, 

Recreation, Climate 

Change, Grey 

Infrastructure, Green 

Infrastructure 

50 Yoskowitz, David, et al. (2009). The Socio-Economic Impact of Sea Level Rise in the Galveston Bay Region. Environmental Defense Fund.
 51 Kousky, Carolyn, et al. (2011). The Role of Land Use in Adaptation to Increased Precipitation and Flooding: A Case Study in Wisconsin’s Lower Fox River
 

Basin. Resources for the Future.
 

C-7 
 

 

 

 

 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

Potential Impacts of California Used GIS database with inundation maps combined with FEMA HAZUS; Sea-Level Rise, Beach 

Increased Coastal Flooding data from the U.S. Census, TeleAtlas, the California Office of Health Erosion, Environmental 

in California Due to Sea- Planning, and power plants from the California Energy Commission; and Justice, Grey 

level Rise Infrastructure, GIS 52 information on hazardous materials sites from U.S. EPA. 

Journal: Climatic Change •	 Assessed the potential impacts from projected sea-level rise if no 

actions are taken to protect the coast, focusing on impacts to the 

state’s population and infrastructure. 

•	 Discussed beach erosion impacts, effects on wetlands, costs of 

coastal defenses, and issues of social and environmental justice 

related to sea-level rise. 

•	 Considered the replacement value of structures by intersecting the 

inundation layers with year 2000 census block data, assuming that 

building value data is distributed uniformly over a census block’s 

area. 

•	 Provided detail on the timing and degree of vulnerability for different 

levels of rise. 

•	 Quoted other existing research and literature for some basic 

estimates of physical adaptation options, including building or 

strengthening seawalls and levees. 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

52 Heberger, Matthew, et al. (2011). Potential impacts of increased coastal flooding in California due to sea-level rise. Climatic Change 1–21. 

C-8 
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

European Case Studies 

Assessing Climate Change 

Impacts, Sea Level Rise 

and Storm Surge Risk in 

Port Cities: A Case Study 

on Copenhagen53 

OECD Environment 

Working Papers, OECD 

Publishing 

Europe/Scandinavia Used statistical data available from past storm scenarios, combined with 

GIS analysis of the population and asset exposure in the city, for various 

sea levels and storm surge characteristics. 

• Estimated economic impacts of climate change on Copenhagen, 

Denmark, focusing on sea-level rise and storm surge. 

• Assessed exposure by mapping population and industry distribution 

data onto a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) (exposure data came from 

risk management software). 

• Estimated direct and indirect losses as part of a risk analysis due to 

climate change and sea-level rise. 

Inundation, Storm Surge, 

Sea-Level Rise, Climate 

Change, Sea Walls, Risk 

Analysis 

53 Hallegatte, S. et al. (2009). Assessing Climate Change Impacts, Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge Risk in Port Cities: A Case Study on Copenhagen. OECD 

Environment Working Papers, No. 3, OECD Publishing. 

C-9 
 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

Impacts of Sea Level Rise 

Towards 2100 on Buildings 

in Norway54 

Journal: Building Research 

and Information 

Europe/Scandinavia Used the Norwegian Building Matrix and a custom GIS program to 

perform vulnerability assessment and develop a model (Rahmstorf 

[2007]) for future global sea level rise and the ”business-as-usual” 

emissions scenario from the IPCC. 

• Assessed the impact of sea-level rise on grey infrastructure along 

the Norwegian coastline. 

• Estimated that more than 100,000 buildings are located less than 1 

meter above typical sea level, including more than 2,000 hotels and 

restaurants, 6,000 residences, 500 buildings related to 

communications infrastructure, 270 buildings vital to energy supply, 

160 schools, and 20 health care facilities. 

• Calculated the total potential costs of the expected sea-level rise by 

estimating an average cost per building for several building types 

and then multiplying that estimate by the number of structures per 

category. 

• Concluded that improved building codes that encourage structures 

resistant to natural stressors, increased drainage, installation of 

pumps, and relocating vulnerable structures could greatly reduce 

costs. 

Sea-Level Rise, Storm 

Surge, Inundation, Grey 

Infrastructure, Climate 

Change, GIS 

54 Almas, Anders-Johan and Hans Olav Hygen (2012). Impacts of Sea Level Rise Towards 2100 on Buildings in Norway. Building Research and Information 40:3, 

245–259. 

C-10 
 

 

 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

Asian Case Studies 

An Assessment of the Southeast Asia Used the Urban Flood Risk Analysis (URFA) model, the Institute of Land-Use Management, 

Socio-Economic Impacts of Industrial Science Distributed Hydrological Model (IISDHM), and a Asia, Climate Change, 

Floods in Large Coastal hydrodynamic model developed by the Public Work Research Institute. Sea-Level Rise. GIS, 

Inundation, Buildings, 

Industrial and 

Areas55 

•	 Examined the socio-economic impact of floods exacerbated by 

Asia Commercial Vulnerability -Pacific Network for climate change in six countries in South and Southeast Asia. 

Global Change Research •	 Developed GIS database of hydrologic characteristics and 

socioeconomic conditions. 

•	 Adapted existing tools and methodologies to simulate and assess 

flooding under long-term climatic change and rise in sea-level, and 

estimated socio-economic impacts and vulnerability. 

•	 Identified existing policy gaps. 

•	 Developed strategies to better communicate with the public. 

•	 Did not consider the economic impacts of sea-level rise on 

ecosystems, tourism, fishing, and other coastal industries. 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

55 Hallstrom, D.G. and V.K. Smith, V.K. (2005). Market responses to hurricanes. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 50: 541–561. 

C-11 
 

 

 

 

 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

The Economic Impact of Southeast Asia Used a travel cost and contingent valuation study to estimate the value Beach Erosion, Beach 

Sea-Level Rise on of nonmarket land. Nourishment, Nonmarket 

Nonmarket Lands in Valuation, Land-Use 

Singapore Management, Sea-Level 56 

•	 Discussed nonmarket lands, such as beaches, marshes, and 

mangrove estuaries Rise, Recreation , and revealed that consumers in Singapore 

Ambio: A Journal of the attach considerable value to beaches. 

Human Environment •	 Looked at the cost of protection given different sea-level rise 

scenarios and the nonmarket value of beaches, marshes, and 

mangrove estuaries. 

•	 The contingent valuation study also placed high value on marshes 

and mangroves, but this was not supported by the travel cost study. 

•	 States that, although protecting nonmarket land uses from sea-level 

rise is expensive, highly valued resources, such as Singapore’s 

popular beaches, should be protected. 

•	 Presented method for estimating costs of beach protection, 

including the construction costs of the underwater hard structures, 

the cost of sand, and the maintenance costs. The cost of sand is 

estimated to be $30 per cubic meter, and the maintenance costs 

are assumed to be 4 percent of construction costs. 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

56 Ng, W. and R. Mendelsohn (2006). The Economic Impact of Sea-Level Rise on Nonmarket Lands in Singapore. Ambio, 35 (6), 289–296. 

C-12 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

Flood Risks, Climate 

Change Impacts and 

Adaptation Benefits in 

Mumbai: An Initial 

Assessment of SocioEconomic Consequences 

of Present57 

Organization for Economic 

Cooperation and 

Development (OECD) 

India/Asia Used the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) to assess 

vulnerability. Used three types of data to estimate direct costs: 1) actual 

data from the 2005 flood, 2) insured value data, and 3) average data for 

generic industrial, commercial, and residential facilities. Used the 

Adaptive Regional Input-Output (ARIO) model to estimate indirect costs. 

• Provided summary information for unprecedented flooding 

experienced in Mumbai, India, in 2005. The event caused direct 

economic damages estimated at nearly $2 billion (U.S. dollars) and 

caused 500 fatalities. 

• Discussed relationship between direct and indirect costs. 

• Concluded that by the 2080, in a SRES A2 scenario (an “upper 

bound” climate scenario), the likelihood of a 2005-like event would 

more than double. 

• Estimated that total losses (direct plus indirect) associated with a 1­

in-100 year event could triple due to climate change. 

• Investigated the benefits of upgrades to the city’s drainage system. 

• Did not take into account population and economic growth. 

• SWMM model is not applicable to typical sea-level rise and stormsurge vulnerability assessments. 

Direct Costs, Indirect 

Costs, Grey 

Infrastructure 

57 Hallegatte, S. et al. (2010). “Flood Risks, Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Benefits in Mumbai: An Initial Assessment of Socio-Economic Consequences 

of Present and Climate Change Induced Flood Risks and of Possible Adaptation Options,” OECD Environment Working Papers, No. 27, OECD Publishing. 

C-13 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

Predicted Impact of the India/Asia Used the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) derived from SRTM 90M Sea-Level Rise, Grey 

Sea-level Rise at Vellar­ (Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission) data, along with GIS techniques, to Infrastructure, Green 

Coleroon Estuarine Region identify an area of inundation in the study site. Effects of inundation are Infrastructure, GIS 

of Tamil Nadu Coast in discussed using GIS-based land-use land-coverage (LULC) and hamlet 

India: Mainstreaming mapping. 

Adaptation as a Coastal 

Zone Management 

Option58 • Assessed the impacts of sea-level rise on coastal natural resources 

and dependent social communities in the low-lying area of VellarColeroon estuarine region of the Tamil Nadu coast, India. 

Journal: Ocean & Coastal • Discussed a number of types of grey and gray infrastructure (but 

Management these are not incorporated in the model). 

• Calculated vulnerability of coastal areas to inundation based on 

projected sea-level rise scenarios of 0.5 and 1.0 meters. 

Other Regional Case Studies 

Assessing the costs of sea- Israel Used GIS modeling to create inundation increment maps and spatially Inundation, Sea-Level 

level rise and extreme distributing assets and population to generate a comprehensive picture Rise, Climate Change, 

flooding at the local level: A of local socio-economic costs. GIS 

GIS-based approach59 (26) 

• Used a method of performing vulnerability assessment that is 

Journal: Ocean & Coastal generic and transferable. 

Management • Estimated costs related to different scenarios of permanent 

inundation and periodic flooding. 

• Inventoried various tools available for assessing the impacts of 

natural processes at the local level. 

• Identified the various types of capital stocks at risk. 

58 Saleem Khan, A., et al. (2012). Predicted Impact of the Sea-level Rise at Vellar-Coleroon Estuarine Region of Tamil Nadu Coast in India: Mainstreaming
 

Adaptation as a Coastal Zone Management Option. Ocean & Coastal Management.
 59 Lichter, Michal and Daniel Felsenstein (2012). Assessing the costs of sea-level rise and extreme flooding at the local level: A GIS-based approach. Ocean &
 

Coastal Management 59 (2012): 47–62.
 

C-14 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Title and Organization 

Geographic 

Area Methodology and Key Findings Keywords 

The Vulnerability of Caribbean Predicted flooding using a digital terrain model (DTM), and overlaid Inundation, Tourism, 

Caribbean Coastal Tourism inundation area with the location of coastal resorts. Sea-Level Rise 

to Scenarios of Climate 

Change Related Sea Level
 

risk from a scenario of 1 meter of future sea-level rise.
 

Journal of Sustainable
 

Tourism
 

Impacts of Climate Change Kenya Used GIS analysis to assess the number of people and associated Inundation, Sea-Level 

and Sea-Level Rise: A economic assets exposed to inundation by comparing elevation data Rise, GIS, Developing 

Case Study of Mombasa, with gross domestic production and population data to identify vulnerable Countries 

Rise60 (41) • Created a geo-referenced database of more than 900 major coastal 

resort properties in 19 Caribbean countries to assess their potential 

Kenya61 (19) assets. Used four sea-level rise scenarios and two population growth 

projections to determine how larger population will affect economic 

University of Southampton, projections. 

School of Civil Engineering 

and the Environment, • Captured baseline scenario of projected economic damage from 

Southampton, UK. sea-level rise and storm surge in Mombasa, Kenya. 

•	 Calculated vulnerable assets based on number of people that 

would be exposed multiplied by the per capita GDP of the country. 

•	 Did not investigate adaptive infrastructure or other mitigation 

options. 

Appendix C: Relevant Case Studies
 

 

 

 

 

What Will Adaptation Cost?
 

An Economic Framework for Community Planners June 2013
 

60 Scott, Daniel, Murray Charles Simpson, and Ryan Sim (2012). The vulnerability of Caribbean coastal tourism to scenarios of climate change related sea level
 

rise, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 20:6, 883–898.
 61 Kirshen, Paul, K. Knee, and M. Ruth. (2008). Climate change and coastal flooding in Metro Boston: impacts and adaptation strategies. Climatic Change 90:453–
 

473. 

C-15