OECD Environment Working Papers

ISSN :: 1997-0900 (online)
DOI :: 10.1787/19970900

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This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies on environmental issues prepared for use within the OECD. Authorship is usually collective, but principal authors are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language English or French with a summary in the other if available.

Assessing Climate Change Impacts, Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge Risk in Port Cities

A Case Study on Copenhagen

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Authors:

Stéphane Hallegatte¹, Nicola Patmore², Olivier Mestre³, Patrice Dumas¹, J. Corfee-Morlot⁴, Celine Herweijer², Robert Muir-Wood²

Author Affiliations

1: Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement, France

2: Risk Managment Solutions Limited, United Kingdom

3: Ecole Nationale de la Météorologie, Météo France, France

4: OECD, France

Publication Date

08 Oct 2008

Bibliographic information

No.:: 3

Pages

DOI

10.1787/236018165623

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This study illustrates a methodology to assess economic impacts of climate change at city scale, focusing on sea level rise and storm surge. It is based on a statistical analysis of past storm surges in the studied city, matched to a geographical-information analysis of the population and asset exposure in the city, for various sea levels and storm surge characteristics. An assessment of direct losses in case of storm surge (i.e. of the damages to buildings and building content) can then be computed and the corresponding indirect losses – in the form of production and job losses, reconstruction duration, amongst other loses – deduced, allowing a risk analysis of the effectiveness of coastal flood protections, including risk changes due to climate change and sea level rise. This methodology is applied in the city of Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, which is potentially vulnerable to the effects of variability in sea level, as a low lying city....

Keywords:: natural disasters, climate change, CIS, government policy, global warming, sustainable development

JEL Classification:

E20: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics / Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment / General
O18: Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Development / Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
Q01: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / General / Sustainable Development
Q54: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / Environmental Economics / Climate; Natural Disasters; Global Warming
Q58: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / Environmental Economics / Government Policy
R10: Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics / General Regional Economics / General