A Multi-Country Study of Forward-Looking Economic Losses from Floods and Tropical Cyclones

IMF Working Papers, July 9, 2024

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Canonical URL: A Multi-Country Study of Forward-Looking Economic Losses from Floods and Tropical Cyclones

Authors: Michele Fornino, Mahmut Kutlukaya, Caterina Lepore, Javier Uruñuela López
Published: July 9, 2024
Series: IMF Working Papers
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400280559.001

Provides forward-looking estimates for economic damages from floods and tropical cyclones (TC) for a wide range of countries using global datasets.
Damages are estimated for three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios and aggregated at the country level.
Geographically disaggregated estimates of hazard severity and economic exposures are built across 183 countries.
Results show that, for most countries, floods and TC’s damage rates increase (i) during the estimation span of 2020 to 2100, and (ii) with more severe global warming scenarios.
Expected floods and TCs damages are unevenly distributed across the world.
Damage rates are identified as the key variable connecting climate scenarios to economics and financial sector risk analysis.

Uses global datasets to estimate geographically disaggregated hazard severity and economic exposures.
Aggregates disaggregated estimates to produce country-level damage estimates.
Produces estimates under three IPCC scenarios for forward-looking analysis spanning 2020 to 2100.

Coverage: 183 countries included in the analysis.
Time span: 2020 to 2100.
Scenarios: Three IPCC scenarios used to capture varying global warming pathways.
Directional results:
- For most countries, damage rates from floods and tropical cyclones increase over the 2020 to 2100 estimation span.
- For most countries, damage rates increase with more severe global warming scenarios.
Distributional outcome: Expected damages from floods and tropical cyclones are unevenly distributed across the world.

Damage rates produced by the study can be used as the key linkage variable for:
- Climate scenario analysis.
- Economic impact assessments.
- Financial sector risk analysis.