The project aims to provide economic assessments of management and policy responses to land subsidence. This is done by conducting a comprehensive Social Cost Benefit Analysis (SCBA) that will quantify and monetize the damages in urban and rural areas, costs of increasing flood risks in low-lying areas, impacts on nature conservation and GHG emissions as a result of subsidence. To support decision making, the SCBA will assess the costs and benefits of policy alternatives such as water level adjustments, construction improvements, changing land use and institutional design alternatives such as taxes and compensatory regimes. This requires to integrate the implementation costs, social and health risks, risks of damages and the impacts on agricultural production into the SCBA.
In order to contribute to the reconciliation of conflicting interests different stakeholders, the forecasting goes beyond aggregated costs and benefits as provided by conventional cost-benefit analyses. Explicit accounting for costs and benefits for each stakeholder subgroup, provides scope to explore cooperation and compensation. In addition the research will develop models to distinguish the costs between regions and urban and rural areas.