Flooding is driving millions of people from their homes, curtailing growth in some thriving communities and accelerating the decline of others, according to a new study detailing how climate change and floods transform where Americans live.
In the first two decades of the 21st century, the threat of flooding convinced more than 7 million people to avoid dangerous areas or leave places that were dangerous, according to a paper Monday in the journal Nature Communications and research from the Risk Analysis Agency First Street Foundation.
Climate change does bad hurricanes more intense and increasing the amount of rain that storms dump in the Midwest. And in the coming decades, researchers say millions more people will decide it's too much to live and leave.
First Street found that climate change creates winners and losers at the neighborhood and block level. The team's research finds an apparent paradox: even as natural disasters caused by climate change become more severe and uproot more people, Americans seem to ignore threat of climate change as they flock to Florida and fire- or flood-prone cities in the US South.
But this misses an important way that people behave locally. Most movements are short distance. people stay close to family, friends and jobs. “It was kind of a hit as everyone is leaving New York and going to Florida,” said Jeremy Porter, head of research at First Street. Luck.
“The story of climate and immigration is really more nuanced than we see at the national level,” he said. “People want to live in Miami. People move there. the population is growing” the booming labor market. A small risk of flooding may reduce growth, but it is not going to stop growth,” he said.
But while knowing the risk of flooding for a particular neighborhood won't cause someone to change their commute plans from Miami to Denver, it will prompt people to seek relatively safer areas in a particular metro area, Porter said.
“They'll say, 'This property is 9 [out of 10 for flood risk], but I want to live in Miami, so I'll look for a 6 or a 7 or a 5 in Miami.' You will think about the risk involved,” he told them Associated Press.
Here's what First Street plans over the next three decades: Miami blocks with a high chance of being hit by a bad storm are more likely to see their population decline, even as much of the city is expected to absorb more people.
Behind these findings is a lot detailed flood risk data, population trends and the reasons people move, allowing researchers to isolate the impact of flooding even as local economic conditions and other factors prompt families to move and live elsewhere. They analyzed population changes in very small areas, down to the census block.
Some blocks have grown quickly and would have grown even faster if flooding hadn't been a problem, according to First Street. The sprawling but flood-prone places could have grown nearly 25 percent more — attracting about 4.1 million more people — if that risk had been lower. The researchers also identified areas where flood risk is driving or exacerbating population decline, which they called “climate dropout areas.” By looking at migration patterns over the past two decades and controlling for known factors that affect migration—such as local job growth, economic development, and the wealth or poverty of an area—they concluded that about 3.2 million people left these neighborhoods. due to the risk of flooding over two decades.
The Midwest in danger — but it won't empty
When First Street projected to 2053, many of the new climate abandonment areas were in Michigan, Indiana, and other parts of the Midwest. The risk of flooding is just one factor driving that change, and it doesn't mean communities are emptying out, said Philip Mulder, a professor who focuses on risk and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“People can live in smarter places within these communities. That's true for both Detroit and Miami,” he told the AP.
Porter noted that the risk of flooding would have a magnifying effect, causing areas that were already experiencing stunted growth to grind to a halt.
“People will still be moving into those areas in Miami. Whereas in the Midwest, you may find that there isn't the same reason for people to be there. So flood risks become a kind of tipping point that pushes people out of communities,” he said. Luck.
When people know that a house is prone to flooding, they are less likely to buy it. Some states, however, do not require disclosure of flood history, according to Joel Scata, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate adaptation team.
“Access to good information is really important in the real estate market,” Scata told the AP.
Even for people who get help getting around, the choice can be excruciating. Socastee, a community near Myrtle Beach, SC, flooded not only when hurricanes hit, but sometimes just when it rained hard and the water came up to doors and into yards. First Street data says Horry County won't grow as fast over the next three decades because of the risk of flooding.
One resident who has suffered repeated flooding said it “makes you sick” with worry every time storms come and your sense of security is torn away.
Terri Straka decided to move out of the area but had a hard time convincing her parents to do the same. Finally, he brought them to a house for sale and said it could be their dream home. They reluctantly agreed to move.
“Being able to envision what a future might look like is absolutely critical to getting people moving. They have to imagine a place, and it has to be a real place they can afford,” said Harriet Festing, executive director of the Anthropocene Alliance, which supports communities like Socastee affected by disasters and climate change.
Older people move less often and need money to move, so if people don't get enough help and don't have the means, they're more likely to stay in dangerous areas. When people start moving, it can create a push for others to leave, leaving behind fewer residents to support a shrinking local economy, according to Matt Hauer, a demographer and study author at Florida State University.
But there are also winners. Louisville, Kentucky, Detroit and Chicago, as well as several other major cities, have a lot of space with little risk of flooding, which will be attractive in the future, First Street found.
The University of Wisconsin's Mulder said of cities like Chicago, “They shouldn't discount their relative benefits of being a safer place in a warming world.”
