Economic implications of autonomous adaptation of firms and households in a resource-rich coastal city

Abstract

Climate change intensifies the likelihood of extreme flood events worldwide, amplifying the potential for compound flooding. This evolving scenario represents an escalating risk, emphasizing the urgent need for comprehensive climate change adaptation strategies across society. Vital to effective response are models that evaluate damages, costs, and benefits of adaptation strategies, encompassing non-linearities and feedback between anthropogenic and natural systems. While flood risk modeling has progressed, limitations endure, including inadequate stakeholder representation and indirect risks such as business interruption and diminished tax revenues. To address these gaps, we propose an innovative version of the Climate-economy Regional Agent-Based model that integrates a dynamic, rapidly expanding agglomeration economy populated by interacting households and firms with extreme flood events. Through this approach, feedback loops and cascading effects generated by flood shocks are delineated within a socio-economic system of boundedly-rational agents. By leveraging extensive behavioral data, our model incorporates a risk layering strategy encompassing bottom-up and top-down adaptation, spanning individual risk reduction to insurance. Calibrated to resemble a research-rich coastal megacity in China, our model demonstrates how synergistic adaptation actions at all levels effectively combat the mounting climate threat. Crucially, the integration of localized risk management with top-down approaches offers explicit avenues to address both direct and indirect risks, providing significant insights for constructing climate-resilient societies.