On February 5th, 2021, 1-2 PM UTC, we had Marco Tedesco, Lamont Research Professor, Marine Geology & Geophysics , Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) at The Earth Institute, Columbia University, and Adjunct Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). He discussed the cost of floods and how rising waters will reshape our lives and our economy. The moderator will be Guido Cervone, Director of the GEOvista Center, Associate Director of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences and Professor of Geography, Meteorology and Atmospheric Science of the Department of Geography at Penn State University. The moderator was Jose Luiz Moutinho, Chief Business & Networking Officer, AIR Centre.

In this brief talk, Marco Tedesco will try to summarize the ongoing body of research focusing on the impact of floods on our lives and economy and will show results of our original work. Cost of flooding events continue to rise dramatically around the world and effective mitigation of flood risks requires a comprehensive understanding of disaster impacts on society. Moreover, recent literature work and his own results show that large direct and indirect consequences of extreme flooding events are paid by socially vulnerable classes through increase cost of insurance and “gentrification”. After providing background on socio-economic and financial impacts of past floods through several test cases, he will discuss current tools at our disposal to map flood extents , their strengths and limitations. Marco will close with two cases from his own work: the first focusing on Hurricane Florence and how urbanization rate might have impacted the exposure of real estate properties during the event and the second dealing with “climate gentrification” in Florida arising from the uncontrolled increase of rental prices associated with real estate speculative investments in socially-vulnerable areas.

Speaker

Marco Tedesco

The cost of floods: how rising waters will reshape our lives and our economy

Marco Tedesco is a Lamont Research Professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and Adjunct Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). He received his Laurea degree and PhD in Italy, from the University of Naples and the Italian National Research Council. He then spent five years as a postdoc and research scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He moved to CCNY in 2008 as an Assistant Professor where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012. During his time at CCNY, he founded and directed the Cryosphere Processes Laboratory and was a rotating Program Manager at the National Science Foundation between 2013 and 2015. In January 2016, he joined Columbia University. in 2019 he founded Climate Impact, LLC a consulting company focusing on climate change impacts. Dr. Tedesco’s research focuses on the dynamics of seasonal snowpack, ice sheet surface properties, high latitude fieldwork, global climate change and its implications on the economy and real estate. He is the author of “The Hidden Life of Ice”, published in 2020 by The Experiment.

We will continue with the Networking Fridays during the next months. More information about future sessions as well as presentations and videos from previous sessions can be found here. Twitter Hashtag: #netfridays. Expect some very exciting afternoons, or mornings or evenings, depending on where you are…

If you need any additional information please send an email to Jose Luiz Moutinho.