SciDevNet: I remember a dry comment nearly 40 years ago by a young woman on hearing that storms on the east coast of the United States had resulted in hugely costly damage: "Yeah, well, that'll be about four houses then". It came to mind when I read a SciDev.Net story on a study that said flood damage to coastal cities around the world could run to US$1 trillion a year. The numbers in the report are massive, but, for me, the report's most telling phrase was: "However, the paper does not assess the potential...