Projects

Civic Innovations

Supporting the Post-Flood Financial Resiliency of Low and Moderate Income Residents in New York City

The mid-Atlantic region of the United States is experiencing growing flood risk. Floods disproportionately impact lower-income households and communities, as they struggle to access needed financial resources for recovery. Financial resilience—the ability to recover from an economic shock—underpins other aspects of recovery and is a necessary condition for broader urban disaster resilience. Despite this, it is an under-researched aspect of climate adaptation. And while there has been some work documenting the problems, actionable investigation of solutions is scarce. Our project is designed to fill this gap.

Insurance for Coastal Adaptation

Climate change is increasing the risks of weather-related disasters for households and communities across the United States, from intensifying storms and wildfires to rising sea levels. Existing tools to finance equitable recovery from these events, as well as risk reduction, are not adequately suited to the magnitude of the problem. This project has investigated new models for risk transfer in a period of escalating risk.

The Role of Insurance in Coastal Adaptation: Workshop Findings

Community Based Catastrophe Insurance

Can Parametric Microinsurance Improve the Financial Resilience of Low‑Income Households in the United States?

Adapting our Flood Risk Policies to Changing Conditions

Portland Flood Insurance Study

The Lents and Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhoods of Portland, Oregon routinely suffer flooding from Johnson Creek. For many low and middle income families in these neighborhoods, flood insurance costs are unaffordable. The Portland Housing Bureau developed an innovative program, the Flood Insurance Savings Program, to help lower the costs of flood insurance and improve flood resiliency in these neighborhoods. Researchers from the Wharton Risk Center, Reed College, and the Portland Housing Bureau, analyzed this pilot program and also launched a survey of residents to estimate their willingness-to-pay for flood insurance.