December 2023
Liton Chakraborty
Jason Thistlethwaite
Daniel Henstra
Rationale (e.g., What is the problem?):
Floods cause over $1 billion in direct damage to households, property and infrastructure, affecting thousands of Canadians annually. Most Canadians living in high-risk areas remain unprotected because they cannot access adequate insurance to protect themselves against the flood risk, cannot mitigate the vulnerability of their homes against potential flood damage, or afford to relocate to safer areas. When flooded, these households must rely on their private resources or limited post-disaster financial assistance from governments or not-for-profit groups, often insufficient to cover their financial losses. Increased personal mitigation efforts decrease housing affordability and increase financial vulnerabilities even if a house is not directly affected by a flood because of a loss of local amenities or population dislocation that causes a decline in property values.
Approach (e.g., What are you doing to address the problem?):
This study assesses how flood risk affects housing affordability by measuring and visualizing disproportionate flood risk exposure to economically insecure residents in Canada. The study seeks data-driven evidence following a set of coherent questions, including a) what indicators Canada uses to measure the influence of flood risk on housing affordability; b) What data is publicly available in Canada to inform indicators capable of measuring the impact of flood risk on housing affordability; and c) how can the spatial prevalence of housing affordability in high-risk flood areas be visualized and disseminated? Using 2021 flood hazard datasets from JBA Risk Management and national census data, bivariate local indicator spatial association (BiLISA)-based cluster mapping was applied to assess and visualize the relationships between flood risk and housing affordability indicators.
Results and Discussion (e.g., What did you or do you expect to learn?):
Canada’s task force report on flood insurance and relocation program demonstrated that certain social vulnerability factors were consistently overrepresented in high flood-risk areas across Canada. For example, measures of neighbourhood economic insecurity, represented through indicators such as the proportion of households on social assistance, low-income status, low-income seniors, those not in the labour force, persons unemployed, lack of high school education and those spending more than 30% of household income on shelter costs, were found higher in high-risk areas compared to low-risk areas. The present study creates a housing affordability index, and represents whether it is relatively lower or higher housing affordability measures are geospatially concentrated in areas with high economic insecurity indicators in Canada.
Why does it matter?:
These analyses could provide critical inputs into designing an equitable national flood insurance program and enabling more effective and inclusive emergency preparedness and disaster risk management in Canada. The study contributes to housing affordability literature by proposing a multi-dimensional index that could help design customized, affordable flood insurance programs and target public resources for those who cannot bear the financial burden of disproportionate flood risk in Canada.
Do you feel this is newsworthy and if so, why?:
Yes, it is newsworthy as the study results could help design a custom-made national flood insurance program for those with limited risk mitigation resources and needing publicly funded and/or subsidized insurance solutions for disaster risk reduction.
Keywords:
Canada; Economic Insecurity; Flood Insurance; Flood Risk; Housing Affordability