Estimating the Impact and Cost of Climate Impacts and Risk Assessment
Abt Associates’ staff has developed and implemented approaches to process climate projection data in order to quantify – and often estimate the cost of – the impacts of climate change on a number of sectors and subjects in the U.S., including:
- Coral reef cover and visitation, recreational fishing;
- Terrestrial ecosystem carbon storage,
- Wildfire frequency and severity,
- Flooding damage, water supply and replacement;
- Bridge degradation and replacement, and
- Human mortality associated with extreme heat.
Our ongoing research is expanding this list with efforts focused on: winter recreation, vector borne disease, extreme events, temperature-driven morbidity and harmful algal blooms.
This work, using coordinated efforts from large interdisciplinary teams of Abt experts as well as external consultants, has resulted in the publication of seven peer reviewed articles in a special issue of the journal Climatic Change. This work also underpins much of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change Division’s widely publicized CIRA project report.