These are the locations and topics covered by funded projects being researched by the UNC Center on Financial Risk in Environmental Systems.

Message from the Director

Gregory Characklis, PhD

Director and W. R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor

Welcome to the Center on Financial Risk in Environmental Systems. We focus on interdisciplinary research that leads to better understanding and management of environmentally-related financial losses. Please feel free to contact us as we are always looking for new problems and opportunities.

The UNC Center on Financial Risk in Environmental Systems (CoFiRES) is jointly housed in the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and UNC’s Institute for the Environment. We focus on understanding the links between financial losses and drought, hurricanes and other extreme environmental events. By developing integrated models of natural, engineered, economic and financial systems, we provide better estimates of the likelihood and severity of environmentally-related financial risks. Our research includes:

  • Translating variability in environmental processes (e.g., rainfall, streamflow, temperature, wind) into variability in financial outcomes (e.g., revenues, costs) to provide improved assessments of financial risk. This information is designed to be useful to lenders, investors, credit ratings agencies and insurers/reinsurers, as well as others focused on understanding financial risk.
  • Developing novel financial instruments, such as index insurance, to help individuals, businesses and government agencies manage environmental financial risks.
  • Creating innovative risk management strategies to combat increasingly complex environmental challenges, using new and existing tools for risk reduction, risk retention and risk transfer.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Gregory Characklis, PhD, Director, Center on Financial Risk in Environmental Systems
William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

139 Rosenau Hall
CB #7431
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7431
(919) 843-5545