An analysis of government data shows "staggering" extent of risk
The US government may be forced to buy millions of homes as the effects of climate change intensify according to a new report.
The University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center has published an analysis of data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency which shows that Americans have sold 43,000 homes in high-risk areas to the government.
FEMA’s Hazard Grant Migration Program has bought homes in 49 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands, with those homes destroyed and the land left free to absorb future flood waters.
But Professor A.R. Siders of the Disaster Research Center says there is likely to be a surge in the need for FEMA homebuying activity.
“There are 49 million housing units in at-risk areas on the U.S. coast, and over $1 trillion worth of infrastructure within 700 feet of the coast,” she told Bloomberg.
In the analysis published in Science Advances, Siders and her co-authors - Miyuki Hino of Stanford University and Katharine J. Mach of the University of Miami - say that officials should focus on long-term planning, noting that relocation of people from disaster-risk areas is more challenging for poorer residents.
“The challenge is to prepare for long-term retreat by limiting development in at-risk areas,” Mach says.
Opportunities
The authors say that rather that focusing on moving people out of danger, there should be consideration of the opportunity that the need to mitigate climate change risk can provide.
“Managed retreat needs to be embedded in larger conversations and social programs,” Siders said. “Retreat can’t be just about avoiding risk. It needs to be about moving toward something better.”
