Conserve now or pay later? New study compares floodplain protection today to predicted future flood losses

A new study by scientists from The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the University of Bristol and flood analytics company Fathom, seeks to answer an important question related to flooding in the United States - pay now to protect undeveloped areas that are likely to flood in the future or allow developments to go ahead and pay for damage when it occurs. The paper 000 square kilometres of land - an area roughly the size of Colorado - in floodplains where conservation would be an economically sound way to avoid future flood damages. Such lands, described as '100-year' floodplains, are areas of land that have a greater than one percent chance of flooding in any given year, or a greater than 26 percent chance of flooding during a 30-year period. Kris Johnson, TNC's Deputy Director of Agriculture for North America, who co-authored the paper, said: "In these areas, we found that investing a dollar to protect these floodplains today could save at least five dollars in potential future flood damages. "The study also tells us it would make even more economic sense to acquire and protect areas with a five percent or greater chance of flooding each year, or so-called 20-year floodplains.