Voluntary property acquisitions are playing an increasingly prominent role in the aftermath of US flood disasters, as policy tools for community recovery and hazard mitigation. Following historic flooding in 2008, the City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, instituted a federally supported program for the acquisition of over 1300 damaged properties. Using Cedar Rapids as a case study, this article investigates post-flood property acquisition from the perspectives of cost effectiveness and social equity. To assess economic viability, a benefit-cost analysis was performed at the parcel scale. Social equity was assessed using a social vulnerability index tailored to flood recovery. The results indicate that the property acquisitions are cost effective based on the avoidance of future flood losses, and prioritize socially vulnerable neighborhoods. The dual economic and social analysis sheds light on the capacity of federally supported buyouts to support holistic post-disaster planning and decision-making.

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Novel sulfonated poly(arylene ether)s, characterized as being highly sterically encumbered, were synthesized for investigation as the ionomer in proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) catalyst layers. Catalyst-coated membranes were prepared via their incorporation into alcohol-based catalyst inks, devoid of the high-boiling, polar aprotic solvents typically required for hydrocarbonbased ionomer inks. Catalyst layers thicknesses increased from 8.5 to 9.1 μm when the hydrocarbon ionomer loading was increased from 20 to 40 wt%, but resulted in a 77% loss in pore volume for fully hydrated electrodes. The catalyst layers possessed similar electrochemical surface areas and net ionic conductivity, yet catalyst layers containing 20 wt% ionomer yielded the highest overall fuel cell performance and considerably outperformed catalyst layers prepared from inks that contained high-boiling solvents. Perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) ionomers offer exceptional physical and chemical stability for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) as well as high proton conductivity, 1 but are relatively expensive, possess high gas permeability, and are of limited use at high temperature and low humidity.2 Hence, attention has focused on the investigation of hydrocarbon (HC)-based solid polymer electrolytes for use as PEMs.3 Compared to PFSA ionomers, there is a large breadth of potentially low cost monomers available for synthesis of HC-based analogues. However, while significant progress has been made studying HC solid polymer electrolytes as membranes, 4 there is very little understanding of their incorporation as ionomer in catalyst layers.5 Studies on PFSA ionomer-based catalyst layers have revealed the complex nature of the interactions between ionomer, Pt, and the carbon support.6-8 The agglomeration of PFSA ionomer in catalyst inks and during the catalyst layer deposition process are believed to dramatically affect proton, gas and water transport through the catalyst layer. A similar impact is expected for catalyst layers containing HC-based ionomers. A previous report by J. Peron et al., for example, demonstrated the influence of sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (sPEEK) loading in the catalyst layer (CL). 9 In each case, sPEEKbased CLs were found to contain smaller aggregated catalyst particles and smaller pore sizes than their PFSA-based counterparts. Inferior in-situ performance was found for all sPEEK-containing electrodes, 10

This paper exploits the seasonal and annual changes in marginal prices for water to estimate the price elasticity of demand by residential households for water. It uses the changes in distributions of water using the census block group levels in response to changes in marginal prices of water for matched months across years. This strategy reduces the interaction effects of outdoor use and demographic fact in determining responsiveness to price. By comparing years that vary in overall water availability the framework can recover measures of how responses to price vary with season and draught conditions. The application is the urban Phoenix metropolitan area.