The Economic Valuation of Flood Damage to Support 2 the Proactive Policies in Sicily †

Although floods, as well as other natural disasters, can be considered 12 relevant causes of intra-generational inequalities, the frequent catastrophes and the 13 resulting damages to territory reflect the generalized indifference about 14 inter-generational justice. Societal concerns, such as land protection, typically 15 involve the administrative system performing proactive policies in the perspective 16 of inter-generational solidarity, but subsidiarity has made more and more 17 independent the local communities. As a consequence, the attention toward the 18 long run effects – typically concerning the territorial system, as a whole, at the 19 geographical scale – has been dispersed, and the proactive policies coming from 20 the central government has became more ineffective. Regarding the case of the 21 flood happened in 2009 in the Fiumedinisi-Capo Peloro hydraulic basin, in the 22 northeastern part of Sicily, Italy, we propose an economic valuation – carried out 23 by performing the method of the imputed preferences – in order to compare the 24 expenses incurred by the public authorities responsible for protecting the territory 25 to the costs of the rehabilitation of the damaged areas. Some considerations about 26 the economic significance of the proactive policies for the arrangement of territory 27 are addressed according to the role played by the social discount rate in the 28 inter-temporal economic calculation. 29