Climate Change Affects Migration in the United States: Evidence from a Census Block Study of Flood and Flood Risks, Revised by the First Street Foundation
The First Street Foundation has developed tools to help people assess risks from fire, flood, and extreme weather that they face. Its latest research was published in the journal Nature Communications today. Researchers from several universities and the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund also contributed to the study.
They looked at every census block to find the tipping points, a level of flooding so bad that people leave the area. The tipping point ranges from place to place, showing that people started to move away when roughly 5 to 15 percent of properties in an area were at risk of flooding.
More than 16 million people in the contiguous US — roughly 5 percent of the population — live in a place with heightening flood risk and a shrinking population, according to new research. Climate Abandonment Areas are becoming a phenomenon in the US as people avoid places that are vulnerable to climate related disasters.
“The population exposure over the next 30 years is a serious concern,” Evelyn Shu, senior research analyst at the First Street Foundation and lead author of the paper, said in a press release. Climate change has made the areas that we have built in the past look like they did in the past, and we have to do something about it.
The phenomenon is more pronounced when you zoom in to see how people have moved. When people think about climate change affecting migration, they think of someone moving far away from home. But that’s just a small slice of overall migration trends. The majority of people move within the same city, county, or metro area, Porter points out.
But it’s by no means confined to these regions, which can get hit repeatedly by storms during the Atlantic hurricane season. Climate abandonment areas are spread throughout the US in places with a lot of heavy rain, tropical storms, and coastal and river flooding.
Kevin Loughran, a sociologist at Temple University who studies relocation from flood zones, says race and class are important factors in how people choose to live.
Moves to the Sun Belt “are a macro migration trend,” explains Porter. “But they’re dwarfed by the amount of people that move within their same city. Stay close to family and keep the same job.
The neighborhoods had a net loss of about 9 million residents between 2000 and 2020. They found that South Florida and Southeast Texas are places growing overall, and many of these neighborhoods are located there.
How to Avoid Flood Damage in U.S. Real Estate if You Have Not Already Broken a House in the Past or is Probably to Have a Future
People buying homes are more aware and cautious of flood risk. More and more states are requiring that homebuyers receive information about whether a house has flooded before, and whether it is likely to flood in the future. Some real estate listing sites include information about flood risk. And people are less likely to search for flood-prone properties when they are given information as part of the listing about whether a home flooded in the past or is likely to flood in the future, according to a study by the real estate website Redfin.
As a result, the cost of flood damage in the U.S. has skyrocketed in recent years. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, home insurance companies and climate and housing experts all warn that huge financial losses from flood damage are not sustainable for families or the economy.