20.05.2020

Study: The Value of Reefs for Protecting the Most Vulnerable Populations in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Grenada

Climate risk insurance measurements include fast response strategies after disasters and adapting mechanisms as well as the prevention of a natural catastrophe for vulnerable people. One approach in the field of risk insurance is the support of nature-based defenses – regulations of the environment to protect its inhabitants. The connections between the benefits of ecosystems and socially vulnerable populations in the case of catastrophes present valuable possibilites for insurances to increase the resilience of affected people and adapt their prevention methods.

 

In cooperation with the environmental organization The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the University of California, Santa Cruz, the Partnership’s Secretariat commissioned a study on the flood defense benefits of reefs for protecting vulnerable people.

The study is part of the publication series of the InsuResilience Working Group on Integrated Approaches:

 

The conducted countries are the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Grenada; areas faced by immense natural disasters over the past decades in forms of floods. In order to define the protection mechanisms of the reefs as a relevant component for climate risk insurance, the research team compared flood risk and reef benefits for scenarios with and without reefs for four storm periods.

 

For more details about the field research methodology and to read the results of the study, please click here.

Read more about the work of the InsuResilience Working Group.