Economics of flood risk in Italy under current and future climate

An integrated impact assessment methodology is
developed and applied to estimate current and future economic impacts
of flood risk in Italy under climate change. The methodology combines a
high resolution spatial analysis with a regionally-calibrated version of a
global Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. The economic
effects are estimated per region, in terms of Gross Regional Product from
1980 till 2100. Climate change effects are based on 12 climate
simulations. Losses are estimated for two disaster risk management
scenarios: with and without adaptation to changing river discharge
conditions. Our results show that in Italy, because of climate change,
current aggregated ensemble-based expected annual output losses
increase 25 percent by the end of the century with adaptation, and
fourfold without adaptation, exceeding 600 million Euro per year. The
paper provides the distribution of adaptation benefits across regions,
which cumulative value exceed 23 billion Euro over the long term (2014-
2100) and 11 before 2050.