Economics of extreme weather events: Terminology and regional impact models

Impacts of extreme weather events are relevant for regional (in the sense of subnational) economies and in particular cities in many aspects. Cities are the cores of economic activity and the amount of people and assets endangered by extreme weather events is large, even under the current climate. A changing climate with changing extreme weather patterns and the process of urbanization will make the whole issue even more relevant in the future. In this paper, definitions and terminology in the field of extreme weather events are discussed. Possible regional impacts of extreme weather events are collected, focusing on European cities. The human contributions to those impacts are emphasized. Furthermore, methodological aspects of economic impact assessment are discussed along a temporal and a sectoral dimension. Finally, common economic impact models are compared, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses.