Prioritising resilience policies to reduce welfare losses from natural disasters: A case study for coastal Bangladesh

Journal article

Quantified flood risk assessments focus on asset losses, neglecting longer-term impacts to household welfare via income and consumption losses. The extent of welfare losses depends upon resilience – the ability to anticipate, resist, cope, recover and learn from a shock. Here, we use a novel welfare loss modelling framework and perform a high-resolution spatial analysis in coastal Bangladesh to quantify welfare losses from a tropical cyclone under present and future climatic and socio-economic conditions. We further test various adaptation options that are intended to enhance resilience. Results show that poor households experience, on average, 7% of the asset losses, but 42% of the welfare losses. Combining dike heightening, post-disaster support and stronger housing can reduce welfare losses by up to 70%, and foster sustainable development by benefitting the poor, increasing resilience and demonstrating robustness under socio-economic and climatic uncertainties. Thus, a welfare-orientated perspective helps to identify adaptation options that enhance resilience and leave no-one behind.

Authors: Verschuur, J; Koks, EE; Haque, A; Hall, JW

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: Global Environmental Change
• Volume: 65
• Issue: November 2020
• Article number: 102179
• Publication date: 2020-10-02
• Acceptance date: 2020-09-20
• DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102179
• ISSN: 0959-3780
• Language: English
• Keywords: disaster risk reduction; sustainable development; Bangladesh; FFR; resilience