Abstract
This study investigates economic damage risk due to extreme rainfall during tropical storms in Jamaica. To this end, remote sensing precipitation data are linked to regional damage data for five storms. Extreme value modelling of precipitation is combined with an estimated damage function and satellite-derived nightlight intensity to estimate local risk in monetary terms. The results show that variation in maximum rainfall during a storm significantly contributes to parish level damages even after controlling for local wind speed. For instance, the damage risk for a 20 year rainfall event in Jamaica is estimated to be at least 238 million USD, i.e. about 1.5% of Jamaica’s yearly GDP.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2059-2086 |
| Number of pages | 28 |
| Journal | Natural Hazards |
| Volume | 110 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 20 Sept 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Our thank goes to participants of the Brown Bag Seminar of the Department of Economics at University of Bern for valuable comments and attendees of the “Natural Disasters and Climate Change” panel at the 25th Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists for discussion and inputs. Special thanks goes to Jeanne Tschopp for her input at an early stage of the manuscript that helped mature the work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
Keywords
- Extreme events
- Rainfall
- Tropical cyclones
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Water Science and Technology
- Atmospheric Science
- Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)