This study explores whether participation in the US Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Com- munity Rating System (CRS), a voluntary community flood risk management program, is a function of policy diffusion or an act of free-riding. Policy diffusion would suggest that, all else being equal, once a community has joined the CRS, neighboring communities will be more likely to follow their lead and participate in the CRS. Free-riding would imply that neighboring communities might choose not to participate in the CRS because they perceive that their community benefits from surrounding communities’ participation. Results indicate that a community’s decision to participate in the CRS is not influenced by the characteristics of or the behavior of their neighbors. The results of this study do, however, show that population density, aggregate housing values, rentership rate, and flat topography are significant predictors of CRS participation.
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Policy diffusion in community-scale flood risk management.
This study analyzes which communities adopted flood risk management practices during the past 25 years. In particular, we focus on community-scale flood management efforts undertaken voluntarily in towns and counties across the United States. In 1990, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency
created the Community Rating System (CRS) to provide incentives to local governments to improve flood resilience. About 1,300 counties and cities voluntarily participate in the CRS, but most eligible communities do not participate. Here, we explore the factors shaping community CRS participation,
such as flood risk, socio-economic characteristics, and economic resources, and we assess the competing phenomena of policy diffusion versus free riding. Previous models of community-scale flood mitigation activities have all considered each community’s decision as independent of one another. Yet one community’s flood management activities might directly or indirectly influence its
neighbors’ mitigation efforts. Spillover effects or “contagion” may arise if neighboring communities learn from or seek to emulate or outcompete early adopting neighbors. Conversely, stricter regulation in one community may allow its neighbors to capitalize on looser regulation either by attracting more
development or enjoying reduced “downstream” flood risks. This paper presents a conceptual model that allows for multiple forces affecting diffusion, such as copycatting and learning from neighboring communities, free-riding on neighbors’ efforts, and competing with neighbors to provide valuable
amenities. We empirically test for these alternative diffusion pathways after controlling for the spatially correlated extant flood risks, building patterns, and demographics. The analysis integrates several large datasets to predict community flood risk management for all cities and counties in the US since 1990. Controls for local flood risk combined with a spatial lag regression model allow separate identification of alternative diffusion pathways. The results indicate strong evidence of copycatting and also suggest possible free-riding.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1635381
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10111019
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- WIT transactions on engineering sciences
- Volume:
- 121
- ISSN:
- 1743-3533
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 81-92
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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