Environmental Economics Accademic year 2014/2015

“Droughts, Floods, and Wildfires: Paleo Perspective on

Disaster Law in the Anthropocene” by Ryan B. Stoa

GROUP OF WORK:• ALESSANDRO TOMASI•FABIO CHIAVELLO•SCAILA CHIAVELLI

“Are droughts, floods, and wildfires an unforeseeable

disasters?”

• Cyclical events• Difficulty to define,measure and predict• Variables that affect drought: precipitation,

temperature,stream discharge, and soil moisture

Droughts

Floods• VARIABLES THAT AFFECT FLOOD:

land use, water management practicesand meteorological change

• CHANGES IN THE WAY OF LIVING:from nomadic life to sedentary life

• HYDROLOGICAL INSTALLATIONS:dams, levees,dikes and canals

Wildfires

• The three ingredients for a fire:

• The two drivers of wildfires risk:

• Fuel• Heat• Oxygen

• Climate change• Forest management

• The shift from frequent low-intensity fires to infrequent high-intensity fires

• HUMANS AND NATURAL DISASTER

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WILDFIRE AND HUNTER-GATHERERS

• From HUNTER-GATHERES to AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES

MOBILITY IMMOBILITY

The transition from hominids to agriculturalist

• Mostly of what we get is reactive responses rather than proactive

• U.S. Drought Monitor• It provides climatic, hydrological, and soil data, impact

assessments, and expert opinion

Drought LawDisaster

Management Policies

Agricultural Laws

Water Resources

Laws

Drought Law: water allocation• States east of the Mississipi River follow riparian law

• Hence, most eastern states now practice a new model of regulated riparianism

• States west of the Mississipi River follow the doctrine of prior appropriation

• In this last scenario, water rights are transferrable thus subject to market forces

Drought Law: groundwaters

• Groundwaters are governed by a third doctrine of water law

• Groundwater extraction rates are so high that global sea level rise can partially be explained by groundwater runoff from the U.S.

Prior appropiati

on

Reasonable use

Rule of capture

Flood Law

• Decisions regarding to city planning and management are left to local mayors, zoning boards, county commissions, and planning departments

For that reason flood management approaches and vulnerabilities vary from one locality to another

Almost eighteen million people live in the highest risk areas

Flood Law: NFIP

• In 1968 the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP):• The federal government put the capital to initiate such a

program, subsidizing insurance for homeowners and borrowing money from the U.S. Treasury during costly flooding years• The government can also, and did in fact, spread risks

across society

• Until 1968 the policies adopted were oriented to the installation of protective infrastructures such as dams, levees, upstream reservoirs, channels and so on

Financial aids: good or not?

• In general, both drought and flood funds:• While providing financial aid to victims shows

compassion, it does little to modify the behavior patterns that created the vulnerability to drought or flood damages

• On the contrary, financial compensation to redress drought damage incentivizes a business-as-usual approach

Wildfire Law

• In the 1980s began the privatization of fire suppression efforts and, since then has created a «fire industrial complex»

• Forty-four million homes are currently located in fire-prone areas (estimated to reach sixty million by 2030)

Disaster Relief

InsurranceFire

Suppression Policy

Spending Review• The Agricultural

Act of 2014 allocates $90 billion for crop insurance

• Disaster relief funds were distributed a week after that Act was signed into law, including $100 million for livestock losses in California

• NFIP has been forced to borrow $27 billion from the U.S. Treasury to cover the discrepancy between premiums and actual risk

• Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 provided $50,7 billion for Hurricane Sandy victims

• The Forest Service’s Fiscal Year 2015 proposed budget requests $708 million for fire suppression efforts – when annual costs from 2011 to 2013 averaged around $1,7 billion

Droughts, floods and wildfires have been a constant feature of humans in their environment

• Our ancestors survived thanks to three peculiarities:• Staying mobile• Diversified• Aware

• To mitigates the damages of these natural events, humans have to be resilient.• In sum, drought, flood and wildfires laws must move

from an anthropocentric paradigm that seeks to control nature, distort risk and provide relief after-the-fact, to a new paradigm that works with nature, reduces risk and mitigates damages.

Drought

MOBILITY

• Crop relocation• Virtual water

trading

DIVERSIFICATION

• Development of a national integrated water resources management framework

• Diversified farming operations

AWARENESS OF THE CHANGES

IN THE ENVIRONMENT

• Groundwater monitoring

Drought resilience will be maximized by pursuing policies that encourage:

Current Framework of Flood Resilience

Infrastructure

Government Insurance

Disaster Relief

Flood

WildfiresThe USDA’s National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy:

Conclusions

Anthropocentric Paradigm

Controlling nature

Spreading risk across society

Providing ex-post disaster relief

Future researches• Analysis of the European situation related to droughts,

floods, and wildfires• Analysis of the European legal framework• Comparison between the U.S. And European’s

spending reviews• Policies about droughts and floods that are enacted by

a singular institution or a coordinated group of institutions, allowing common goals and flows of information• Policies about wildfire that restore its frequent low-

intensity