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Public Policy and Land Conversion: Lessening Urban Growth Pressure in River Corridors
Author(s) -
A.BOLLENS SCOTT
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
growth and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.657
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1468-2257
pISSN - 0017-4815
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2257.1990.tb00509.x
Subject(s) - floodplain , flood myth , flooding (psychology) , investment (military) , business , flood mitigation , liberian dollar , environmental planning , hazard , natural resource economics , environmental resource management , geography , finance , environmental science , economics , ecology , political science , psychology , cartography , archaeology , politics , law , psychotherapist , biology
Year in and year out, flooding causes greater dollar losses than any other natural hazard. To cope with that problem, more than 17,000 communities across the US have adopted riverine floodplain management programs to reduce the amount of urban development at risk from flooding and flood‐related damage. This article examines the extent to which floodplain management programs influence the investment and predevelopment decisions of owners of vacant floodplain land in ten selected cities. Such public programs are found to alleviate investment and development pressure in flood hazard areas. Community‐wide factors such as the availability of non‐floodplain buildable land, however, can magnify or depress this effect of public policy on investment activity. Further, landowner perceptions of the flood hazard itself have an important influence on anticipated property appreciation and investment activity.