The cost of sea level rise in western countries

Many articles claim to assess the cost of the sea level rise. However, the approaches are not always comparable. For example, the cost of the SLR in the developing countries having no sea-walls cannot be compared with the one of developed countries already having many protections. Also, for the developed countries, the assessment studies do not always have the same objectives. Some try to assess the macro-economic cost and thereby the results are clearly dedicated to the governments (Bosello et al. 2012), some are more dedicated to the insurance company (Michael, 2007) by providing an assessment at a bigger scale, some are dedicated to the cities etc. The abundance of scientific articles assessing the cost of the sea level rise attests of the complexity of the task resulting of the uncertainty of the forecast. 

Bosello et al. (2012) assessed the economic impacts of the SLR in Europe. They reckon the cost of adaptation and the cost of the direct damages and economic loss without adaptation in order the know more about the best solution. In their conclusion, they attest that some countries would save more money by not adapting themselves. However, their analysis is only economic and do no consider the danger for some human life and their analysis does not consider the indirect economic cost, for example, the impact on tourism. To give you a rough size,from the highest SLR scenario of the IPCC, they assess the adaptation costs at 803 million euros per year by 2020 and 2,3 billion euros by 2080 in Europe, an we know that the observed SLR have followed the highest prevision of the IPCC.  

Zhang et al. (2011) focused on a much smaller area and took less risks on the estimation as they assessed the adaptation cost per properties in the Florida Keys from 2000 to 2100. In these low islands, a rise of 0.6 meter by 2100 would inundate 70% of the area and 12% of the real properties which are estimated to 39 billion dollars. 

At the same scale, Michael (2007) assessed the damage due to the higher episodic flooding occasioned by the SLR without speculating on their frequency in three areas of the Maryland. For an three feets (about 90cm) scenario of SLR, the growth of the flood damage goes from more than a million dollars to 18 million dollars per flooding depending of the elevation of the area and on the intensity of the event. 

All these results cannot be compared but permit to realize the huge cost of the SLR. They also attest of the diversity of the impacts of the SLR. However, the assessment cannot be reduced to an economic cost as the SLR associated with extreme events could have some impacts on human lifes and biodiversity, even more in the developing countries.

Bibliography: 

Bosello, F. et al. 2012. Economic impacts of climate change in Europe:

sea-level rise. Climatic change. No. 112. p63-81

Michael, J.A. 2007. Episodic flooding and the cost of sea level rise. Ecological economics. No. 63. p149-159.

Zhang, K. et al. 2011. Assessment of sea level rise impacts on human

population and real property in the Florida Keys. Climatic Change. No. 107. p129-146