by ST. LOUIS (AP) – Flooding is driving millions of people from their homes, curbing growth in some thriving communities and accelerating the decline of others, according to a new study detailing how climate change and flooding are transforming place residence of Americans.
In the first two decades of the 21st century, the threat of flooding convinced more than 7 million people to avoid or abandon dangerous areas, according to a paper Monday in the journal Nature Communications and research by the risk analysis organization First Street. Foundation.
Climate change is making bad hurricanes more intense and increasing the amount of rain that storms dump on the Midwest. And in the coming years, researchers say millions more will decide it’s too much to live with and leave.
First Street found that climate change is creating winners and losers at the neighborhood and block level.
Zoom out to consider the entire country and Americans seem to be ignoring the threat of climate change when they decide where to live. Florida, which is vulnerable to rising seas and strong storms, is growing fast, for example. But that misses an important way people behave locally. Most of them move a short distance; people stay close to family, friends and jobs.
Jeremy Porter, head of research at First Street, said there is “more to the story” than population growth in the Sun Belt states.
“People want to live in Miami. If you already live in Miami, you’re not going to say, ‘Oh, this property is a 9 (out of 10 for flood risk), let me move to Denver,’” Porter said. “They’re going to say, ‘This property is 9, but I want to live in Miami, so I’m going to look for 6 or 7 or 5 in Miami.’ You’re going to think about relative risk.”
That’s what First Street projects over the next three decades: Blocks in Miami that have a high chance of surviving a bad storm are more likely to see their population decline even though they’re expected to absorb enough of the city more people.
Behind these findings are highly detailed data about flood risk, population trends and the reasons people move, allowing researchers to isolate the impact of flooding while local economic conditions and other factors encourage families to build and live somewhere. another. They analyzed population changes in very small areas, down to the census block.
Some blocks grew quickly and would have grown even faster if flooding had not been a problem, according to First Street. Areas that are growing but at risk of flooding could have increased by almost 25% more — attracting about 4.1 million more people — if that risk had been lower. Researchers have also identified areas where the risk of flooding is driving or exacerbating population decline, which they termed “climate desert areas”. About 3.2 million people left these neighborhoods because of the risk of flooding over a period of two decades.
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 this change and it doesn’t mean communities are emptying out, said Philip Mulder, a professor of risk and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“People can live in smarter places within those communities. That’s just as true for Detroit as it is for Miami,” he said.
When people know that a house is flooded, they are less likely to buy it. Some states, however, do not require disclosure of flood history, according to Joel Scata, senior attorney on the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate adaptation team.
“Access to good information is really important in the real estate market,” said Scata.
Even for people who receive help to move, the choice can be very important. Socastee, a community near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, was flooded not only when a hurricane hit, but sometimes just when it rained hard and water would reach saturated doors and yards. First Street data says Horry County won’t grow as fast in the next three decades because of flood risk.
One resident who has experienced repeated flooding said that it makes you “sick” and anxious whenever storms come and your sense of security dissolves.
Terri Straka decided to move away from the area but had trouble convincing her parents to do the same. Eventually, she took them to a house for sale and said it could be their dream home. They reluctantly agreed to move.
“It is vital that they are able to imagine what the future will look like for people to be able to move. They have to imagine a place and it has to be a real place that they can afford,” said Harriet Festing, executive director of Anthropocene Alliance which supports communities like Socastee affected by disaster and climate change.
Older people don’t move as often and it costs money to move, so if people don’t get enough help and don’t have the resources, they are more likely to stay in dangerous areas. When people start moving, it can create momentum for others to leave, leaving fewer residents behind to support a shrinking local economy, according to Matt Hauer, a demographer and study author at State University Florida.
But there are winners too. Louisville, Kentucky, Detroit and Chicago as well as many other large cities have plenty 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 the relative advantages of being a safer place in a warming world.”
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Fassett reported from San Francisco.
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