Methods Evaluating the Economic Effects of Coastal Dunes in Reducing Storm-Induced Property Damage: Hurricane Ike and Texas Coast Case Study

Nature-based solutions to storm protection, such as sand dune restoration and construction, are a flourishing topic in coastal engineering. A crucial aspect of developing nature-based mitigation techniques is evaluating the efficacy of these approaches (i.e., evaluating their economic value) to justify the cost of investment. The objective of this study was to develop a methodology to quantify the monetary storm mitigation value for the dune systems of the Texas Coast during Hurricane Ike. The basic approach for the analysis was to parameterize the pre-storm dune size for different sections of coastline. Then, a regression analysis was used to determine if dune size was correlated with reduced landward home damage. The dune parameters of vegetation area and sediment volume were both significantly correlated with reduced landward home damage at a total value in excess of six million U.S. dollars across the ~18 km of shoreline analyzed. This developed methodology provides the first quantitative estimate of the protective value of dune systems based off storm-induced property damage data, but continued research is needed to improve this methodology and build on this topic.