Army Corps of Engineers, Flood Maps, Levees, Mississippi River, National Flood Insurance Program, Teaching Materials

Corps of Engineers systematically underestimates river flood risk

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Robert E Criss, Statistics of evolving populations and their relevance to flood risk, Journal of Earth Science 1–7 (2016).

ABSTRACT: Statistical methods are commonly used to evaluate natural populations and environmental variables, yet these must recognize temporal trends in population character to be appropriate in an evolving world. New equations presented here define the statistical measures of aggregate historical populations affected by linear changes in population means and standard deviations. These can be used to extract the statistical character of present-day populations, needed to define modern variability and risk, from tables of historical data that are dominated by measurements made when conditions were different. As an example, many factors such as climate change and in-channel structures are causing flood levels to rise, so realistic estimation of future flood levels must take such secular changes into account. The new equations provide estimates of water levels for “100-year” floods in the USA Midwest that are 0.5 to 2 m higher than official calculations that routinely assume population stationarity. These equations also show that flood levels will continue to rise by several centimeters per year. This rate is nearly ten times faster than the rise of sea level, and thus represents one of the fastest and most damaging rates of change that is documented by robust data.

Admiralty, FTCA, MRGO

Discretionary authority defense applies to admiralty cases – MRGO admiralty claims dismissed

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In re Katrina Canal Breaches Litig., No. 14-30060, 2015 WL 3407410 (5th Cir. May 28, 2015) – 5th Circuit reviews standard for discretionary authority defense and finds that applies to cases brought against the Federal government under the admiralty laws. Admiralty based claims for damage allegedly caused by dredging MRGO were dismissed as discretionary actions covered by the statutory defense.

Coastal Restoration, Coastal Restoration Mythology

Coastal Restoration as Keynesian Spending – Building Jobs in Louisiana with Other People’s Money

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The key to understanding Louisiana Coastal Restoration is to forget wetlands and floods and look at the money. Pretty much all of the money for coastal restoration and related “resiliency” projects is intended to come from other people, primarily the federal government, and secondarily the oil and gas industry. This report, THE COASTAL INDEX: The Problem and Possibility of Our Coast, explicitly discusses how important this is to the LA economy. It calls the overall bundle of projected water management services:

Defining and Situating the Water Management Sector (p10)

In this report, water management refers to all of the water-related work happening off the coasts, such as creating barrier islands and marshes; all the work on the coastlines, mainly levee and breakwater construction; and the work happening inland managing subsidence and storm water deluges, such as building green infrastructure that better stores water.

Starting on p24, the report discusses how important this sector is to the economy and why it has to grow.

The water management economy in Southeast Louisiana grew by 7,526 jobs from 2011 to 2013…

One of the most important aspects of coastal restoration is that it does not require education:

With 75 percent of jobs in occupations offering hourly wages of $15 or higher, the water management sector outperforms the total economy of Southeast Louisiana, where only 53 percent of jobs are in occupations that offer the same hourly pay. In the water management sector, jobs in occupations offering wages in the $15 to $30 an hour range can be acquired with as little as a high school diploma supplemented by various levels of on-the-job training. Those that acquire a bachelor’s degree and supplement it with experience earn over $30 an hour on average. Overall, the opportunities afforded by this sector and its ease of accessibility shows that water management holds promise for boosting quality of life for a wide spectrum of workers.(p27)

So we see that coastal restoration is highly paid work that does not require education, and it is a major source of new jobs in LA. Ironically, this does not depend on whether any of the projects work. It maybe that building projects that do not work really increases the flow of federal money, at least until the taxpayers of other states get tired of supporting a state whose own parishes vote down taxes that would support even a small part of this work: St. Bernard voters reject levee tax again

 

Climate Change

Assessing and Improving Flood Insurance Management and Accountability in the Wake of Superstorm Sandy

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U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Majority Staff Report Assessing and Improving Flood Insurance Management and Accountability in the Wake of Superstorm Sandy (2015)

Despite widespread concerns, it does not appear that systematic incentives exist for any participant in the program to underpay on claims. Nor does there presently exist evidence of any such pattern of underpayment. Theories of “systematic underpayment” are inconsistent with the actual data produced by FEMA auditing. We found no persuasive evidence to support the existence either of any general incentive to underpay policyholders or of any practice of doing so. Data from claims operation reviews of “Write-Your-Own” (WYO) insurance carriers – private companies that issue and service NFIP policies – and from the “Direct” program, in fact, show low overall rates of payment errors. If anything, these data indicate that overpayments are more common than underpayments.

 

Property/Casualty Insurance

Property/Casualty Insurance Resouces

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Fragmented Risk Symposium – Rutgers Journal of Law & Public Policy

Hunter, J. Robert. “Property/Casualty Insurance in 2008: Overpriced Insurance and Underpaid Claims Result in Unjustified Profits, Padded Reserves, and Excessive Capitalization.” Consumer Federation of America (January 10, 2008), http://www. consumerfed. org/elements/www. consumerfed. org/file/finance/2008Insurance_White_Paper. pdf (2008).

 

FEMA, National Flood Insurance Program, Teaching Materials

National Flood Insurance Program: Evaluation

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National Flood Insurance Program: Evaluation (FEMA – 2006)

Original Link

The NFIP Evaluation Capstone Study summarizes what was done, what was learned, and recommendations made. It synthesizes the sub-study findings into a coherent report evaluating the aspects of the Program prioritized by the NFIP Evaluation Steering Committee, and makes cross-cutting recommendations evidenced by themes that arise across the various sub-studies.

Study Reports

Summary Report and Recommended Performance Measures

Actuarial Soundness and the Cost of Flooding

Compliance with NFIP Floodplain Management Requirements

Building Standards and Identifying Flood Risk

Environmental and Developmental Impacts of the NFIP

Background

Last Updated:
05/04/2015 – 09:23
Climate Change, National Flood Insurance Program, NFIP Finances

Tying Flood Insurance to Flood Risk for Low-Lying Structures in the Floodplains

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Tying Flood Insurance to Flood Risk for Low-Lying Structures in the Floodplains 

Authors

Committee on Risk-Based Methods for Insurance Premiums of Negatively Elevated Structures in the National Flood Insurance Program; Water Science and Technology Board; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Mathematical Sciences and Their Applications; Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences; National Research Council
Description

Floods take a heavy toll on society, costing lives, damaging buildings and property, disrupting livelihoods, and sometimes necessitating federal disaster relief, which has risen to record levels in recent years. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was created in 1968 to reduce the flood risk to individuals and their reliance on federal disaster relief by making federal flood insurance available to residents and businesses if their community adopted floodplain management ordinances and minimum standards for new construction in flood prone areas. Insurance rates for structures built after a flood plain map was adopted by the community were intended to reflect the actual risk of flooding, taking into account the likelihood of inundation, the elevation of the structure, and the relationship of inundation to damage to the structure. Today, rates are subsidized for one-fifth of the NFIP’s 5.5 million policies. Most of these structures are negatively elevated, that is, the elevation of the lowest floor is lower than the NFIP construction standard. Compared to structures built above the base flood elevation, negatively elevated structures are more likely to incur a loss because they are inundated more frequently, and the depths and durations of inundation are greater.

Tying Flood Insurance to Flood Risk for Low-Lying Structures in the Floodplains studies the pricing of negatively elevated structures in the NFIP. This report review current NFIP methods for calculating risk-based premiums for these structures, including risk analysis, flood maps, and engineering data. The report then evaluates alternative approaches for calculating risk-based premiums and discusses engineering hydrologic and property assessment data needs to implement full risk-based premiums. The findings and conclusions of this report will help to improve the accuracy and precision of loss estimates for negatively elevated structures, which in turn will increase the credibility, fairness, and transparency of premiums for policyholders.

Read more →

Climate Change

ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

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ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

1. “LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.[1]

2. This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters. …

US Catholic Bishops: Letter To Congress On Regarding Protecting Creation And Carbon Pollution Standards

As Chair of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development of the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops, I write to urge you to oppose legislation and appropriations riders
designed to reverse efforts to implement a national standard to reduce carbon pollution from existing
power plants….

Climate Change

Western Water – Resources

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Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study – WWW site

Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study – Executive Summary (2012)

Report predicting that the demand on the river will exceed capacity by 100% by 2050.

Chasing Water

A visual trip from the headwaters to where the river runs dry before the old delta in Mexico.

2014 Pulse of Water on the Colorado

In 2014, a pulse of water was released into the Colorado to allow water to reach the delta. It did not make it all the way to the ocean, but it did reach several restoration projects.

Wasted Water: Reasonable Use Law in 21st Century California, Proceedings of 2015 California Water Law Symposium on Reasonable Use Law in 21st Century California

World’s Aquifers Losing Replenishment Race, Researchers Say