The Frontiers of Natural Hazard Risk Management Data

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

The frequency and range of natural hazards, and resultant damages, are growing. So too are the forward-looking considerations of vulnerability to flooding, fire, heat etc. used by lenders, insurers, builders, credit rating agencies, and home buyers/renters. In response to the demand for investments that are protected against rising physical hazards, emerging risk management data products are becoming a more important part of decision and policy making.  Such datasets on the risks from natural perils and weather-related disasters often claim to be able to protect future investments through information including peril-specific risk across the United States, future probabilities of hazards, and quantification of potential damages at the neighborhood and even parcel scales. Examples include public offerings like FEMA’s National Risk Index and private data from firms such as Moody’s and CoreLogic. The transparency, availability, and quality of these data impact decisions around resilience investments that can affect decades of public and private spending, built environment policy, and individual household financial planning. Financial sectors like the insurance industry already make use of such data and analyses show that premiums and non-renewal rates correlate with risks described in the indices. This is perhaps the best known and early price signal of the effect these data may be expected to have on markets. These new high-resolution physical risk datasets have considerable nuance in their varied underlying data and unexplored future uses.  Given this, we propose a roundtable discussion to better understand the design of these data, their most appropriate applications, potential pitfalls, and use in research.

In this session, roundtable participants will examine a range of topics and ideas for future research with and on these risk index data. Roundtable participants will draw on their expertise and experience to engage in an interactive discussion of questions including:

• What are some of the most important or immediately urgent applications of these data for households, communities, and policymakers?


• Which characteristics (geographic scale, time frames, peril specificity, retro/prospective) contribute to added utility or bias in risk indices, and does this differ by use case? Can a typology of risk index data be agreed upon for their implementation in policy?


• What potential exists for composite/ensemble/multi-hazard risk estimates? How best can different indices be standardized, aggregated, and synthesized?


• As indices become more widely accepted and used in planning and policy making, what considerations should inform data governance, uncertainty reporting, data monitoring, and evaluation?


• How can data providers, policymakers, researchers, and intermediary organizations present and explain risk data to non-technical audiences?   


• What are the potential differential impacts of the use of such data for low- and moderate-income communities?


• Can we arrive at a starting set of research questions related to the methodological considerations for these data and their use?

Policy Area

• Methods and Tools of Analysis

Secondary Policy Area

• Natural Resource, Energy, and Environmental Policy

Moderator

• Steven Koller, Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies

Organizer

• Adie Tomer, Brookings Institution

Speakers

• Jenny Schuetz, Arnold Ventures

• Annie Preston, ClimateCheck