USC Price School of Public Policy Research Professor Adam Rose’s projects involving hazard mitigation and disaster risk management were presented at the White House Roundtable on the Business Case for Climate Resilience on Nov. 28.
Rose was invited to serve as one of five expert panelists; and while he was unable to attend, his introductory remarks were shared at the event by a colleague. Ryan Colker, an advisor to the president of the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) – where Rose serves on the Board of Advisors for its Multihazard Mitigation Council (MMC) – presented Rose’s scholarly work.
Specifically, Rose’s remarks centered around his recent work for the World Bank on co-benefits of disaster risk management, as well as his ongoing work with the MMC on estimating benefits of hazard mitigation projects.
“The remarks on my World Bank research summarized sources of private sector co-benefits, reasons why they are often not taken into account, and policies to have them incorporated into mitigation investment decisions,” Rose said.
In addressing his work with the MMC, Rose highlighted an influential 2005 study, along with a new initiative on mitigation.
Rose led the research team of the 2005 MMC report to Congress titled, Mitigation Saves: An Independent Study to Assess the Future Savings from Mitigation Activities. This report – often known as the “four-to-one” study, because that was the average benefit-cost ratio estimated for a sample of 10 years of FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) projects – is still widely cited in Congressional testimony and has resulted in significant amounts of additional funding for hazard mitigation, Rose explained.
Since nearly all HMGP grants were for public sector projects, and public sector assets represent only about 10 percent of the value of buildings and infrastructure in the U.S., the MMC is undertaking a Mitigation Saves 2 initiative to focus primarily on private sector decision-making. Rose is serving on the Advisory Board of this new study.