Digital defenses: Can high-tech insurance flood-proof vulnerable farmers?

When climate disasters strike, farmers are among the first to feel the consequences. This was true before the novel coronavirus and it’s certainly true now. The climate crisis compounded by the global health crisis leaves the most vulnerable even more at risk.

Around 74% of natural disasters between 2001 and 2018 were water related. During the past 20 years, the total number of deaths caused by floods and drought exceeded 166,000, while floods and drought affected over three billion people and cost economies almost US$700 billion, as reported by the UN World Water Development Report in 2020.

Until recently, flood-risk management offered mostly low-tech, crisis response solutions. These included infrastructures like dams and flood walls, often created to rebuild destroyed landscapes in agricultural areas.

But these methods…