Sahan Dissanayake

Sahan Dissanayake, Assistant Professor

Department of Economics, Portland State University

“Coastal conservation and sea-level rise: Using methods from Economics to guide adaptation choices”

Sea-level rise due to climate change is having an unprecedented impact on coastal areas. In this presentation I share results from three projects that, (1) quantifies the impacts of sea level rise on coastal land conservation in the U.S., (2) creates a site selection framework that conservation organizations can use to prioritize coastal conservation efforts, (3) illustrates the application of portfolio maximization methods from finance to identify climate resilient adaptation methods for coastal conservation that account for the uncertainty in climate predictions.