Territorial Inequalities in Real Estate Markets’ Flood Resilience: Evidence from the Forlì-Cesena Province (Italy)

Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, with significant implications for economic and territorial systems. Among these events, floods have emerged as a major threat due to their widespread geographical reach and their capacity to produce both severe damage and long-term socio-economic impacts. While a growing body of literature has examined the impact of flood risk on real estate prices, limited attention has been devoted to the resilience of real estate markets and spatial heterogeneity. This paper investigates the resilience of residential real estate markets to flood risk in Italy, a territory characterized by high hazard conditions and pronounced territorial disparities. We resort to a “stage-damage” methodology for the ex-ante evaluation of flood damages and derive a “critical stage” as a proxy for market resilience across municipalities. The results, based on the case study of Forlì-Cesena province (Italy), reveal a clear spatial pattern, with resilience systematically declining from central to peripheral municipalities, reflecting the climate resilience counterpart of existing socio-economic and demographic disparities. These findings highlight the need to integrate equity considerations into risk management and spatial planning policies.