Virtual 2024 John R. Freeman Lecture: Environmental Financial Risk in Coupled Human-Natural Systems

Extreme environmental events such as droughts, floods, heat waves and violent storms result in global losses that approach $500 billion per year. These events often impact the costs and/or revenues of both public- and private-sector actors, giving rise to financial instability that can be disruptive. Dr. Characklis will describe approaches to characterizing and managing financial risk in coupled natural-engineered-economic systems, followed by a description of several recent studies in the following economic sectors: urban water utilities, electric power utilities, agriculture, and inland navigation.