Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
assembled examples of local land-use reforms that have been enacted to cope with sea level rise and other physical changes to the ambient environment. The reforms that the Pace Land Use Law Center has studied in the U.S., however, are marginal compared with the comprehensive adaptive disaster preparations of the Netherlands. The Dutch government has developed a multi-year plan to deal with floods from the Rhine River Basin and storms from the English Channel in 2008. The Netherlands had vast flooding in 1953, which extended over one-third of that nation, and thus takes seriously the threat of repeated floods. The Delta Commission made 12 programmatic recommendations to redesign national development to become resilient and reshape both rural and urban areas with a phased plan of action. Landowners at high risk are being obliged to sell their lands to the government and move; projects to cope with flood conditions are scheduled for the coming years through 2050, and further projects through 2100. The Dutch are the first national government to implement a phased and adaptive new sustainable development regime that plans to avert disasters where possible and cope with future natural disasters where necessary. Throughout the U.S., local governments seek to manage development in flood plains using practices of the 19th or 20th centuries to ameliorate flooding with levees and other practices built up over the years. California's Central Valley is particularly vulnerable, and a flood plain plan is required, but little has been done to alter historic "business as usual" patterns of land use. States and local authorities protect freshwater wetlands, but rarely expand them or integrate their capacity to absorb flood waters into a comprehensive floodwater prevention and adaptation process, despite recommendations to do so. In his study, Losing Ground, A Nation on the Edge (2007), Pace Law School Professor John Nolon makes clear the sort of pervasive redesign that both the private and public sectors will need to adopt if they are to cope effectively with disasters. Suffice it to say, few of the lessons of past disasters are being heeded by Congress and most agencies in Washington, D.C., and in most state capitols. Fundamental to building resilience for disaster recovery is securing the financing needed, which in turn requires more study of the adequacy of insurance programs. Most commercial insurance assumes rebuilding "as is," and where an asset was located. Most self-insured governments make the same assumptions. In coping with large-scale disasters, both premises are unrealistic and are unsustainable. Without a significant increase in the scope and availability of insurance, new insurability standards and higher premiums, society cannot finance the new sustainable development needed after a disaster. Government self-insurance is wholly unrealistic in large-scale disaster; there is no elastic source of funds to pay for long-term redevelopment, after the immediate disaster relief stage. Too much attention has been paid to insurance that compensates the injured so that parties can rebuild in the same place, face the same risks again, and require a further "bailout" once the next repeat disaster hits. This is the criticism of the federal flood insurance program. Too little attention has been paid to other types of insurance, such as expanding Index Insurance programs that cope with agricultural disasters, or to how to expand insurance programs to the vast areas of the world where literally no insurance is available. The lack of insurance makes the world's contemporary development model unsustainable. Despite a recognition that insurance has a central role to play, the Recession of 2008 and the regulatory reforms for credit and financial institutions have distracted the insurance industry from working with state insurance commissions to expand coverage to deal with disaster recovery. The provision of adequate insurance deserves priority 42