Working Paper: NBER ID: w30137
Authors: Sahil Gandhi; Matthew E. Kahn; Rajat Kochhar; Somik Lall; Vaidehi Tandel
Abstract: Urban flooding poses danger to people and places. People can adapt to this risk by moving to safer areas or by investing in private self-protection. Places can offset some of the risk through urban planning and infrastructure investment. By constructing a global city data set that covers the years 2012 to 2018, we test several flood risk adaptation hypotheses. Population growth is lower in cities that suffer from more floods. Richer cities suffer fewer deaths from flood events. Over time, the death toll from floods is declining. Cities protected by dams experience faster population growth. Using lights at night to measure short run urban economic dynamics, we document that floods cause less damage to richer cities and cities with protective dams. Cities with more past experience with floods suffer less from flooding.
Keywords: Flood risk; Urban adaptation; Economic activity; Night lights; Climate change
JEL Codes: Q51; R11
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| urban population growth (R23) | lower in cities with more severe floods (R11) |
| death toll from urban floods (H84) | lower in high-income countries (I14) |
| death toll from urban floods (H84) | higher in low-income countries (O15) |
| floods (Q54) | negatively impact economic activity (F69) |
| recovery to pre-disaster economic levels (H84) | quicker in high-income countries (O57) |
| night lights fall during floods (Q54) | less in richer cities (R11) |
| cities protected by dams (Q25) | experience more floods with reduced negative impact (Q54) |