| Summary: | The three principal objectives of this study were: (i) to identify the levels of agricultural project planning where an economic analysis, utilizing natural disaster risk information, could be introduced, (ii) to examine methods of incorporating natural disaster risk into economic analyses of agricultural projects, and (iii) to include this information in an economic analysis of an agricultural project, and to consider the potential effects of such information in planning.
Several economic analysis methods were investigated, and four were selected to incorporate natural disaster information into the planning of a case study project in st. Lucia. The first two methods selected were cut-off period and discount rate adjustment. Sensitivity analysis was also utilized to investigate the parameters of two key economic decision making variables, net present value and benefit-cost ratio. Finally, a stochastic simulation program was utilized to conduct mean-variance analyses on the project with and without a disaster mitigation measure, for comparison.
Results from cut-off period, discount rate adjustment and sensitivity analyses suggest that disaster information can be readily incorporated into agricultural project planning. This information greatly increases the amount of information available to project planners. Results from the mean-variance analysis suggested that disaster mitigation options could increase the benefits from a project. In turn, these more stable benefits could improve the development in developing nations. === M.S.
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