Econometric estimation of the link between floods and climate change in the province of New Brunswick
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Date
2019
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University of New Brunswick
Abstract
Over the past decades, New Brunswick has recorded many extreme weather and climate events such as winter storms, hurricanes, floods, storm surges, and severe thunderstorms resulting in huge damages to individuals, firms, and Governments. Among these events, it has been proven that flood is the most occurring one.
In this study, we estimated the relationship between floods and climatic variables such as temperature, rainfall, sea-level and Green House Gases (GHG) emissions using the logit model. River discharge was used as a hydrological control variable. The model showed that, there exists statistically significant positive relationship between flood and rainfall and GHG emissions. Moreover, temperature and sea-level are close to being significant showing negative and positive relationships with flood respectively. However there exists an insignificant positive relationship between discharge and flood.
Results from the logit model were used to predict the probability of future floods in New Brunswick by taking into consideration the long run dynamics of the hydrological variable and climatic variables. It was established in this study that, the probability of flood in New Brunswick will be 100% in 2057 if the effects of temperature, rainfall, sea-level, discharge and GHG emissions are considered.
The significance of this study is to provide economic justification for the investments into preventive and mitigation measures in the region.