National Flood Insurance Program

May 20, 2011 — The Editors

With flood waters inundating so many in the Mississippi River Valley and with spillways being opened to try and midigate the damage further downstream, we turn today to the size of the United State’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The program was designed to provide a shared pool of resources that could help and reduce the high cost of disaster assistance resulting from flooding along the national waterways.

NFIP is not only an insurance program but a floodplain management and mapping program. Participation is NFIP is voluntary at the community level, with a couple of exceptions. One is for properties located in officially designated flood plains on which a mortgage is held. Banks require the purchase of flood insurance for such properties on which they hold the mortgage. Another exception to the voluntary nature of this program is the fact that those who receive financial assistance from the federal government following a Presidential declaration of disaster may then be required to purchase flood insurance through NFIP.

Today’s market size is the total amount paid in premiums to the NFIP in 1990 and 2010 as well as the number of policies in force in those years.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 1990 and 2010
Market size: $672.8 million from 2.48 million policies and $3,353.8 million on 5.65 million policies respectively
Source: “Statistics by Calendar Year,” data made available online here by FEMA.
Original Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Secutiry, Federal Emergency Management Agency

Posted in Insurance, National Infrastructure, Water. No Comments »

Hydroelectric Power

March 30, 2011 — The Editors

The production of electricity with hydroelectric power plants represents 80% of all renewable electric power generation worldwide. Hydro plants work by using the flow of water to turn a turbine, which then turns a metal shaft in an electric generator, which is the motor that produces electricity. Hydroelectric Power Plants accounted for 15.97% of all electric power produced worldwide in 2008.

In the United States, 6% of electricity is generated in hydro plants, a relatively small percentage compared with other nations. The ability to use hydroelectric power plants to generate electricity is, of course, to a large extent a matter of having the resources needed to harness water’s power. Paraguay, for example, produces 100% of its electricity—as well as electricity enough to export—from hydroelectric power plants while Saudi Arabia has no hydroelectric power generation. A chart which shows the top twenty countries in the world based on their production of hydro-power and based on the same source material is presented on the blog, LaMarotte, here.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2008
Market size: 2,998 Billion Kilowatt hours
Source: “Table 1387. Net Electricity Generation by Type and Country: 2008,” Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2011, page 867, available online here.
Original Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Posted in Electric Power, Energy, National Infrastructure, Water. 2 Comments »

Residential Septic Systems

August 7, 2010 — The Editors

For a brief change of pace, septic systems!
One fifth of all residential housing units in the United States are served by individual, onsite septic systems, including 22% of all housing units less than four years old. In 2007, 50% of all housing units served by such septic systems were in rural areas, 47% in suburban areas and 3% were in central cities according to the U.S. EPA.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 1985 and 2007
Market size: Number of housing units respectively: 24.6 Million and 26.1 Million
Source: Septic Systems Fact Sheet, October 2008, available online here
Original Source: United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Wastewater Management

Posted in Market Size, Waste Management, Water. No Comments »

Water Desalination Market

July 6, 2010 — The Editors

The energy it takes to remove the salt from water makes it a process that is hard to do economically except in areas where two things coexist, water shortages and abundant energy resources. Consequently, 65% of desalination plants around the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Plants located in the United States account for 11% of the world desalination market.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2008
Market size: $8 Billion
Source: “World Water Desalination,” July 2009, p. NA
Original Source: Freedonia Group

Posted in Market Size, Water. No Comments »

Packaged Ice Market

May 27, 2010 — The Editors

The annual wholesale market demand for packaged ice in the United States and Canada, including packaged ice resold through retail channels and packaged ice utilized in non-retail applications. In 2008, Home City and Arctic Glacier were investigated for price fixing, pleaded guilty and settled.

Geographic reference: North America
Year: 2007
Market size: $2.3 Billion
Source: “In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan,” September 15, 2009, p. NA [Online] here.
Original Source: Wild Law Group PLLC

Posted in Ice, Market Size, Water. 3 Comments »

World Water Treatment Products Market

April 8, 2010 — The Editors

The Earth has, and has always had, approximately 9.25 million trillion gallons of water, of which 97 percent is salt water. As world populations grow, the need to reuse water, and thus to treat it, will continue to grow.
Geographic reference: World
Year: 2008
Market size: $44.6 Billion
Source: “World Treatment Products,” November 2009, p. NA [Online] here.

Posted in Chemicals, Market Size, Water. No Comments »
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