Natural Hazards Research Summit 2022:A Decision-Support Tool for Testing Land Use Policies in the Context of Natural Hazard Risk

The continued demand for the construction of new houses in high-risk areas is a significant driver of society’s increasing natural hazard risk. One method for altering housing development patterns and minimizing a housing inventory’s natural hazard risk is to leverage land use policies. We present a decision-making tool under development that estimates the projected location of new single-family housing units over a 30-year horizon based on past development trends in the state of North Carolina to compare the effects of simulated land use policy options in the context of hurricane risk. The tool first identifies areas in North Carolina where increased housing development pressure is likely to overlap with areas of high hurricane risk under a business-as-usual development scenario. Different land use policy scenarios are then evaluated by comparing the expected hurricane losses and the expected property tax revenues under each land use policy. The presented tool extends further by integrating into an existing stakeholder decision-making model to understand how changing housing construction dynamics influences decision-making among government, insurer, and homeowner stakeholder groups. The results from the tool provide insights on the long-term costs and benefits of different land use policies.