Assessing Secondary Benefits of Urban Flood Protection Projects : The Case of Wroclaw, Poland

With global climate change impacting cities around the world, local and national governments need to plan for and invest in solutions that mitigate the climate and disaster risks their populations and economies face. Urban flooding poses an acute threat to sustainable and equitable urban growth and wellbeing. While the primary benefit of investments in urban flood protection is the avoidance of future damages and losses, such investments can also provide secondary benefits that can help unlock localized economic potential and contribute toward green growth. Although secondary benefits of investments in urban flood protection can be difficult to assess and quantify, the growing availability of locally sourced and remotely sensed data opens new possibilities. This study presents a spatially focused methodology that employs proxies to provide further evidence of secondary benefits linked to large-scale investments in urban flood protection in Wroclaw, Poland. Within newly protected areas, the study finds increases in land and residential real estate values, and an increase in economic development in parallel to on an increase in nighttime light intensity and built-up area. The study also finds that the relative rate of change for land and residential real estate values, nighttime light intensity, and built-up area within areas newly protected from flooding outstripped that of other areas of the city.