Society has limited hazard mitigation dollars to invest. Which actions will be most cost effective, considering the true range of impacts and costs incurred? In 1997, the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment began a two-year study with a panel of experts to help develop new strategies to identify and reduce the costs of weather-related hazards associated with rapidly increasing coastal development activities.The Hidden Costs of Coastal Hazards presents the panel's findings, offering the first in-depth study that considers the costs of coastal hazards to natural resources, social institutions, business, and the built environment. Using Hurricane Hugo, which struck South Carolina in 1989, as a case study, it provides for the first time information on the full range of economic costs caused by a major coastal hazard event. The book: describes and examines unreported, undocumented, and hidden costs such as losses due to business interruption, reduction in property values, interruption of social services, psychological trauma, damage to natural systems, and others examines the concepts of risk and vulnerability, and discusses conventional approaches to risk assessment and the emerging area of vulnerability assessment recommends a comprehensive framework for developing and implementing mitigation strategies documents the human impact of Hurricane Hugo and provides insight from those who lived through it.The Hidden Costs of Coastal Hazards takes a structured approach to the problem of coastal hazards, offering a new framework for community-based hazard mitigation along with specific recommendations for implementation. Decisionmakers -- both policymakers and planners -- who are interested in coastal hazard issues will find the book a unique source of new information and insight, as will private-sector decisionmakers including lenders, investors, developers, and insurers of coastal property.

"In a country of parching drought, stinking streams, and muddy floods" (to use the author's words), the management of America's water resources is, and promises to remain, a vital national issue. Yet, while there exist many proposed plans and normative studies in the field of water management little attention has been devoted to the analysis of decisions which have actually been made, and the projects which have actually been undertaken. As Dr. White observes: "... it is not common to analyze water resource activity in terms of the character of decisions made and the strategies they reflect."The theme of this volume is that by examining how people make their choices in managing water from place to place and time to time we can deepen our understanding of the process of water management, and thereby aid in finding more suitable ends and means of manipulating the natural water system."In Strategies of American Water Management, Dr. White outlines a framework in which society's decisions as to water management may be examined, and then discusses six of the major strategies which have been practiced in the United States. Of each strategy the author asks: Who makes what choices? What is the effect upon the public welfare? What is the effect upon the environment? Drawing on personal experience with national and regional water planning efforts, Dr. White in his analysis points up an emerging shift in man's attitude toward nature—the replacement of the view of man as "conqueror" by the view of "harmonizer" and "co-operator." This penetrating and informed study—by an acknowledged authority in the field—constitutes an important contribution toward the intelligent and responsible solution of the problem of American water management.