Researcher(s):
Evan Stanbro
ENVS course(s): 400 Initiated: September 2012 Completed: May 2013 Go to project site
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For my senior thesis, I seek to explore the economic ramifications of hurricane-induced deforestation on the timber industry of the southeastern United States. Annually, about 85 hurricanes form in the tropical regions around the world. From Australia to Bangladesh to the Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes strike and cause billions of dollars in property damage, leave millions of people homeless, and even cause thousands of fatalities. In the Atlantic basin, tropical storms form every summer off the coast of Africa and move west towards the United States. Many of these storms do not grow to become full-fledged hurricanes. However, every several years a monster category 4 or 5 hurricane forms in the Atlantic basin and strikes the southeastern United States, causing devastating effects. An often over-looked ramification of hurricanes, timber damage caused by a large hurricane can reach the billions. Over the next century, global climate change may have a large impact on hurricane magnitude, frequency and distribution. Thus, in this paper I analyze how hurricane activity may change by 2100 given an IPCC A1B climate change scenario. I apply model-projected 10% increases in hurricane wind speed and 20% increases in hurricane rainfall, and find that by 2100, average timber damage caused by a category 3, 4 or 5 hurricane could increase by $200 million. Due to salvage logging, government assistance, casualty loss deductions, and insurance, the timber industry as a whole appears to be resilient to such large increases in cyclonic deforestation. However, individual landowners without insurance may be at serious risk.