حسابداری کامل هزینه ی بلایای ساحلی در ایالات متحده: مفاهیم برای برنامه ریزی و آمادگی

As coastal disasters become more frequent and costly, a full assessment of costs becomes more important. This paper aims to identify costs of coastal disasters to human, social, built and natural capital and their associated services at the local site of a disaster and in the regions and nations that respond for relief and recovery. The spatial and temporal magnitude and scale of costs is captured differently in typical cost accounting and a more comprehensive approach, full-cost accounting. The difference between these approaches will be demonstrated using Hurricane Katrina (2005) as a case study, though we do not attempt to perform a full-cost accounting of this actual event. We examine how disaster planning and preparedness becomes more cost effective when the full cost of disasters is calculated. A full-cost accounting of coastal disasters sets the stage for rigorous comparisons of strategies for post-disaster development. The rudimentary analysis of this paper indicates that continued population development as well as the maintenance of current settlements in particular regions along the coasts may not be in the national interest. In this way, full-cost accounting could help reduce vulnerability to future disasters.

Coastal disasters are affecting more people and communities every year. This is due to the increased frequency in natural disasters along the coast confounded by the migration of people from in-land areas to coastal regions around the world (Martinez and Intralawan, 2007-this issue). Local government and business officials must balance costs for planning and preparing for disasters with more immediate demands on resources. The cost of disasters has been widely reported based on the costs to human capital (lives lost) and built capital (public and private infrastructure) at the local level (Boswell et al., 1999), although some efforts have been made to estimate local public costs for recovery and response during hurricanes (Boswell et al., 1999). In many cases, these costs have not proven high enough to lead local or federal decision makers to implement sufficient mitigation actions in order to reduce vulnerability and damage. Furthermore, in the United States policies at the federal level encourage resettlement in particularly vulnerable coastal areas rather than migration in-land (Bagstad et al., 2007-this issue). In this paper, we examine the full costs related to coastal disasters including losses to natural, social, human and built capital and the often uncounted or immeasurable costs of services provided by all four capitals in disaster relief and recovery. The specific objectives of this paper are as follows: (1) identify salient costs to built, human, natural and social capital resulting from coastal disasters; (2) identify salient costs of services provided by each capital in disaster relief and recovery; (3) examine the importance of spatial and temporal scale in disaster accounting; (4) differentiate costs captured by typical and full-cost accounting; and (5) examine policy implications of performing a full-cost accounting of disasters including pre-disaster planning, demographic policy and allocation of funds during recovery. Although we have not attempted to conduct an actual full-cost accounting for any one disaster, this paper is clearly framed by the recent hurricane activity on the Gulf Coast. Where possible, we have included values for Hurricane Katrina in our discussion.

We have found that a solid methodology for conducting full-cost accounting for disasters is not well described in the ecological economics literature. We propose an initial framework to conduct such an exercise based on losses to built, human, natural and social capital stocks and services provided from each during disaster relief and recovery. Although data regarding most of these capitals are generally available, only losses to built capital and paid recovery efforts are included in typical disaster cost accounting. Full-cost accounting requires careful analysis of intangible, pecuniary and indirect effects and close attention to spatial and temporal scale. A full-cost accounting of coastal disasters could inform local and national policy in three important ways. First, examination of the full-costs of coastal disasters demands a more proactive approach to disaster mitigation through investment in natural capital (coastal wetlands) and built capital (strong infrastructure) as well as better disaster preparedness achieved through community development (social capital) and disaster planning (human capital). Second, we argue that current policies that encourages settlement in vulnerable parts of the coast should be replaced with policies that provide incentives to repopulate the interior of the country, much of which is currently experiencing negative population growth. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a full-cost accounting is required in order to made appropriate decisions about the optimal investment during recovery in built, human, natural and social capital.