Focus Areas

Coastal Climate Risk

Assesses current and future wind and flood hazards associated with tropical and extratropical cyclones (including coastal and rain-driven flooding, and their interaction), including the effects of sea-level rise and geomorphological change, as well as the co-occurence of tropical cyclones and heatwaves. Develops detailed exposure data based on building elevations and infrastructure typology and combines these with social information to characterize resultant risks.

Housing, Insurance, and Mortgage Markets

Investigates how evolving coastal risk affects the inter-related real property, insurance, and mortgage markets, estimating economic costs in these markets, evaluating policy interventions, and tracing the linkages between insurance pricing and availability and housing values and mortgage market outcomes.

Municipal Finances

 Investigates how climate changes will impact local governments’
revenues and expenditures, potentially creating fiscal risks and needed changes to budget processes. The work will also investigate how fiscal impacts will feed on housing markets, community equity, and resident well-being.

Equity in Adaptation Strategy Design

Examines how decision frameworks used to support adaptation decision-making lead to different tradeoffs between economic efficiency and equity goals.

Household Decision Making

Examines if local underserved households make decisions
about whether to relocate out of an exposed area or to adapt in place, and if so how.

Transdisciplinary Research and Co-Product Design

 Examines how epistemic and ethical values, both of the research team and stakeholders, inform research design, and evaluates how design choices within MACH shape its execution.