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County study finds billions in avoided damages but large up-front costs
Summary
The county's economic analysis estimates billions in avoided residential damages and property-value losses under adaptation scenarios, but also estimates tiered implementation costs in the tens of billions; presenters said benefit–cost ratios are positive.
Presenter Jennifer Geraldo walked commissioners through the study's economic buckets and summarized modeled benefits relative to costs.
She said current-day modeled annual average residential exposures are about $600,000,000 and that a 2-foot sea-level-rise scenario with surge increases annual average exposures to roughly $1,800,000,000. "...you would reduce your annual average exposures by about 500,000,000, on a 2 foot sea level rise scenario," she noted when describing tier 1 benefits.
The presenter described avoided-damage totals in different scenarios: the study reports tier 1 implementation avoids $776,000,000 in average annual residential damage under a 2-foot scenario and tier 2 showed about $4,000,000,000 in savings under a 3-foot scenario. She also cited property-value impacts: a modeled $24,000,000,000 reduction in residential property values countywide under a 2-foot/no-adaptation scenario, with an average percent reduction shown as 13% in the graphic.
On costs, Geraldo said tier 1 costs (including a 30% contingency) are just over $21,400,000,000 and that the combined tier 2 package totals roughly $30,000,000,000 countywide. She said modeled benefit–cost ratios were positive ("at least" 3.4 for combined tiers and about 1.5 for tier 1 alone) but cautioned many cascading benefits are not modeled and that economics are only one input to policy choices.
