Economic footprint of California wildfires in 2018

Abstract

Recent increases in the frequency and scale of wildfires worldwide have raised concerns about the influence of climate change and associated socio-economic costs. In the western U.S., the hazard of wildfire has been increasing for decades. Here, we use a combination of physical, epidemiological, and economic models to estimate the economic impacts of California wildfires in 2018, including the value of destroyed and damaged capital, the health costs related to air pollution exposure, and indirect losses due to broader economic disruption cascading along with regional and national supply chains. Our estimation shows that wildfire damages in 2018 totaled $148.5 (126.1-192.9) billion (roughly 1.5% of California's annual GDP), with $27.7 billion (19%) in capital losses, $32.2 billion (22%) in health costs, and $88.6 billion (59%) in indirect losses. Our results reveal that the majority of economic impacts related to California wildfires may be indirect and often affect industry sectors and locations distant from the fires (e.g., 52% of the indirect losses-31% of total losses-in 2018 were outside of California). Our findings and methods provide new information for decision-makers tasked with protecting lives and key production sectors and reducing the economic damages of future wildfires.

Entropy-based Chinese city-level MRIO table framework

“…In the context of climate change, the city-level MRIO table can track how climate risks are distributed among cities and identify which cities are more exposed to, or create, supply chain risk. A recent study measuring the economic and health costs of the California wildfires in 2018 offers a good example of how high-resolution MRIO tables can evaluate the hidden costs of natural disasters (Wang et al, 2020). Hidden costs can not only guide city councils in conducting precautionary actions and comprehensively assessing potential damages, but also offer crucial data to private sectors, such as insurance or real estate companies.…”

Without SLO BECCS, fast net-zero looks unlikely

“…Communities across California, and particularly those in the heavily forested Sierra Nevada, could benefit from a BECCS sector which reduces forest fuel-load by utilizing forest biomass, reducing fire risk [40] and dangerous air pollution, and this was reflected by the dominance of the wildfire prevention storyline (Figure 1). Recent wildfire events in California have resulted in tragic loss of life as well as billions of dollars in damage [42] and this storyline is therefore expected to be highly salient to forming a SLO for BECCS in California. The uniqueness of the CO2 storage concern storyline to California is perhaps unsurprising: CCS technology has lower public support in the US, where storage would be onshore, than in the UK, where storage would be offshore [16].…”

Equitable vaccine distribution promotes socioeconomic benefits globally

“…In detail, our disaster impact assessment model is an extension of the adaptive regional input-output (ARIO) model 20,21 , which was widely used in the literature to simulate the propagation of negative shocks throughout the economy 1,5,30,46 . Our model improves the ARIO model in two ways.…”

“…Constraints on productive capital. Similar to labour constraints, the productive capacity of industrial capital in each region during the aftermath of a disaster (𝑥 𝑖 𝐾 ) will be constrained by the surviving capacity of the industrial capital 46,49,50 . The share of damage to each sector is directly considered as the proportion of the monetized damage to capital assets in relation to the total value of industrial capital for each sector, which is disclosed in the event account vector (EAV) for each region (𝛾 𝑖 𝐾 ), following 50 .…”