This report empirically examines the determinants of private participation in flood mitigation programs that use a payment for ecosystem services (PES) framework and suggests improved PES program designs and enhancements to their flood mitigation effectiveness. It offers evidence suggesting income from farming and potential participants' past experiences with PES programs may increase participation in programs aiming to mitigate flooding and that in turn could reduce economic damages from flooding impacts.

Federal policy and programs can play a critical role in helping communities—especially those with limited resources—ensure both security and economic vitality in the face of increasing threats from natural hazards. But to get there, the federal government needs a more coordinated approach to empower state and local governments, as well as local institutions and private-sector partners that are working hand in hand with homeowners, businesses, and local and Tribal governments. In this brief, the authors recommend four critical proactive actions the federal government could take to effectively and cost-efficiently prepare the nation for these extreme events and reduce their catastrophic impacts.

Debt-for-nature swaps on a grand scale could slow climate change and promote economic growth in the Global South.

Addressing climate change requires urgent and innovative action aimed at both mitigating its effects and addressing its most severe impacts. However, current investment levels are insufficient to match the escalating climate risks and damages. Despite the annual target of $100 billion established at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference/Conference of Parties, climate finance directed to low- and middle-income countries continues to lag behind stated goals.

The goal of this research is to understand the implications of using nature-based solutions, or natural infrastructure (NI), to mitigate the impacts of flooding. The two solutions I evaluate to supply NI are a program that financially incentivizes its supply by private landowners, and a government-run floodplain property acquisition program. This dissertation consists of three papers examining payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs in terms of enrollment, incentives, and outcomes. 

Debt distress, biodiversity loss and climate change are interconnected crises for developing countries. A task force of multilateral development banks and environmental institutions is convening a task force to establish a framework to ameliorate these crises by reforming debt-for-nature swaps. The authors of this Policy Forum identify four reforms that should underpin the new framework.

In 2023, UN climate proceedings (COP 28) made clear that challenges of adapting to climate impacts are now a priority comparable to the focus on mitigation (greenhouse gas reduction). Floods, wildfires, drought, and heat are causing great damage in the United States and other highly developed countries which, on paper, were prepared. The report explains that in contrast to mitigation (greenhouse gas reduction) and further now longstanding environmental governance approaches, adaptation may call for transformation of core governance structures, tools and resources.

River restoration has primarily relied on public sources for funding projects, such as agency-based grants and philanthropy. More recently, there is growing interest in the potential role of private finance to offset the declines in public funding and to potentially increase the scale and scope of river restoration overall. This chapter, part of the book Resilience and Riverine Landscapes, reviews broad concepts in finance and then describes two broad types of private sector approaches to capitalizing restoration projects: voluntary markets and regulatory markets.

The United States has increasingly relied on government-administered floodplain buyout programs to reduce flood risk and remove flood-damaged dwellings from floodplains. However, high transaction costs and long administrative timelines dramatically hamper buyout program efficiency. This report derives financial efficiency thresholds suggesting situational advantages to both private- and government-run buyout programs and also evaluates alternative institutional structures for implementing buyouts and novel mechanisms for financing buyouts

US states must have a FEMA-approved state hazard mitigation plan (SHMP) to apply for certain nonemergency disaster funds and funding for mitigation projects. SHMPs indentify the hazards that may impact a state and detail corresponding mitigation strategies. This report assesses the treatment and definition of heat as a hazard in each state's most recent plan. The importance of extreme heat—the leading cause of weather-related death in the United States—is often understated because it does not fit easily into current SHMP guidelines. The authors provide recommendations to help states adequately evaluate the threat of extreme heat as they update their SHMPs.