Wetlands, Flooding, and the Clean Water Act

Charles Taylor and Hannah Druckenmiller
Additional contact information
Hannah Druckenmiller: Resources for the Future

No 21-26, RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future

Abstract: In 2020 the EPA narrowed the definition of ‘Waters of the United States’, significantly limiting wetland protection under the Clean Water Act. Current policy debates center on the uncertainty around wetland benefits. We estimate the value of wetlands for flood mitigation across the US using detailed flood claims and land use data. We find the average hectare of wetland lost between 2001 and 2016 cost society $1,840 annually, and over $8,000 in developed areas. We document significant spatial heterogeneity in wetland benefits, with implications for flood insurance policy and the 50% of ‘isolated’ wetlands at risk of losing federal protection.Click "Download" above to read the full paper.

Date: 2021-08-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-des, nep-env and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rff.org/documents/3285/Update_WP_21-26.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Wetlands, Flooding, and the Clean Water Act (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-21-26

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Resources for the Future ().