Can Mangroves Minimize Property Loss during Big Storms? An Analysis of House Damage due to the Super Cyclone in Orissa

Saudamini Das

No 42, Working papers from The South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics

Abstract: Storm protection is an important regulating service provided by mangrove forests because they can shield inland property and lives during tropical cyclones. Theoretical as well as empirical research shows that mangroves provide protection from storm surge. But whether mangroves protect inland static property during storms is less explored. This paper estimates the storm protection benefits due to mangroves during the super cyclone of 1999 in Orissa. By combining GIS data with census information, the paper examines the mangrove mediated effects on residential property in the Kendrapada district of Orissa. The analyses suggest that the percentage of fully collapsed houses in the study area would have increased by 23% without the benefit of mangrove protection. On the other hand, if the mangrove cover had remained at the level that it had been in the 1950s, the area would not have suffered any fully collapsed houses at all. The total protection benefits of mangroves in terms of averted damages to residential property in Kendrapada are estimated to be INR 592,647,800 (USD14, 110, 662). This suggests that mangrove forests provided protection benefits to houses to the extent of INR 975, 800 (USD 23,233) per km width of forests or INR 51,168 (USD 1218) per hectare of forests. Thus, policy makers need to take mangrove conservation and re-planting into account in planning for tropical storms, which are expected to increase with global warming.

Keywords: Averted damages; Mangroves; Storm Protection; Wind damages; Property-loss; Orissa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sandeeonline.org/uploads/documents/publ ... rking__Paper__42.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Can Mangroves Minimize Property Loss during Big Storms? An Analysis of House Damage due to the Super Cyclone in Orissa (2010)
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:snd:wpaper:42

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working papers from The South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics PO Box: 8975, EPC: 1056 Kathmandu, Nepal.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Anuradhak ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).