The dimensions and negative impacts of climatic events have multiplied, causing the average annual damage from weather- and climate-related disasters to rise from $18 billion in the 1980s to $81 billion at the beginning of the first decade of the current century. This necessitates that governments take responsibility for supporting and assisting communities in adapting to increasing climate risks.
However, the greatest burden of these damages falls on local governments, which are tasked with organizing and stimulating new housing sites, developing and operating transportation and water infrastructure, and overseeing emergency response. Therefore, the importance of this study by researcher Caroline George and others at the Brookings Institution in December 2023 lies in discussing how climate risk data can help communities become more resilient.
The study indicates that climate analytics could contribute to local governments adopting a more proactive approach by identifying the nature of risks, developing climate action plans, and implementing strategies to mitigate these damages. It also identifies optimal ways for local governments to use climate risk data and develop strategic adaptation plans, with a case study of San Diego, California.
Environmental Imbalances:
With the increasing pressures of heatwaves, floods, or wildfires on neighborhoods and cities located in disrupted climatic environments, the importance of protecting people and property by local governments grows. Weather-related risks have become a test of these governments’ ability to meet these responsibilities. This is due to environmental imbalances, as populations reside in hazardous areas, and many neighborhoods and cities, such as San Diego, built in previous decades, are not well-prepared for planning and mitigating climatic events like hurricanes in Southern California or frost in the Southeast.
San Diego’s land development policies to counter the accelerating pace of population growth in climate-risk areas have increased the likelihood of residents facing various environmental crises. Federal responses to these crises are limited to rebuilding homes, buildings, and infrastructure in the same ways and locations without a proactive strategy for climate absorption and adaptation.
With increasing environmental changes and the relative exposure of various neighborhoods to these risks, the availability and effectiveness of climate risk data for local governments become crucial. This data helps reduce the cost of these risks by planning community adaptation strategies to better anticipate, absorb, and quickly recover from shocks.
In response to these growing risks, many local governments are implementing new policies focused on resilience, in addition to carbon reduction or mitigation plans. Many municipalities and regional governments are adopting climate action plans and assessing adaptation needs, using updated standards to design more resilient infrastructure such as urban tree canopies, plant barriers, and permeable surfaces. Additionally, developers and owners of supported housing are systematically evaluating climate risks across their properties and integrating climate resilience into both new developments and updates to older buildings.
Adaptation Strategies:
Every local government in the United States needs reliable sources of climate risk information to design effective and resilient strategies to tackle environmental challenges such as flood maps, rainfall reports, and wildfire maps. These sources need to be updated and accurate as they are fundamental for climate management. Mapping climate risks is a goal for both local governments and private sector companies that rely on data to better prepare for climate events. Property insurance companies, institutional real estate, and financial services companies are among the entities that have integrated small-scale climate risk data into their business practices.
California has adopted a model for assessing climate risks and establishing indicators, while the city of San Diego has focused on compiling and analyzing data for all its lands, enabling the creation of various indicators related to land parcels. This is similar to the digital land records maintained by local tax assessors, which detail land uses and building types, linking this to population data. Additionally, measures to monitor physical risks and their costs have been established to calculate tangible economic impacts, including the ongoing operating costs borne by households and businesses.
Spatial patterns and various geographic data help local governments plan and invest for adaptation and understand how climate risks intersect with social and economic vulnerabilities. Typically, low-income households and communities are more affected by climate events. Therefore, financial resources, access to credit, information, and other resources are crucial for a wide range of adaptation strategies. However, limitations on this data present challenges for the public, especially concerning fire and flood risks. Climate risk measures can be clarified through San Diego’s model in the following points:
Temperatures: Temperature is the most significant climate risk in San Diego, threatening public health, reducing worker productivity, and increasing demand for civil services like cooling. All neighborhoods in the city face some level of heat risk; however, the degree of risk depends on location. Coastal neighborhoods experience fewer high-temperature days compared to inland areas. About 17% of areas face more than 20 extreme heat days, compared to around 12% of neighborhoods. Some moderate-risk blocks contain high-risk parcels, and heat waves are more closely linked to geographic factors than to social and economic ones. This necessitates looking at smaller geographic areas to map where risks might be present and requires policymakers to consider different adaptation strategies for heat-prone neighborhoods based on demographic, economic, and physical characteristics.
Wildfires: Wildfires are the second most prevalent climate risk in San Diego. Although not as widespread as heat risks, their likelihood is higher in the eastern part of the city due to its proximity to open spaces and canyons. The rugged terrain and fire-prone vegetation allow fires to spread easily. Over 40% of city parcels have a wildfire risk model, and the city has bolstered investments in wildfire management following incidents in 2003 and 2007.
Flood Risks: Flood risks from severe storms are less prominent in California cities compared to coastal areas along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. However, Hurricane Hilary in August 2023 may signal future risks. The Federal Emergency Management Agency in San Diego uses a 100-year floodplain estimate to identify high-risk areas. However, the city suffers from poor drainage system quality, as many older neighborhoods were built to outdated design standards, exacerbating flood impacts that lead to coastal erosion affecting homes, businesses, and infrastructure.
Key Challenges:
Mapping climate risks is a positive approach to enhancing community resilience to environmental changes. However, there are challenges, including the difficulty of communicating climate risks to the public due to their technical and complex nature. To address this challenge, companies specializing in climate risk assessment have developed a set of indicators (wildfires, floods, winds, extreme heat) to simplify relative risks for the public. At the same time, another challenge in mapping climate risks is finding effective ways to analyze and interpret climate data, which is highly complex and requires a blend of statistical skills and subject matter expertise for accurate interpretation.
In general, integrating climate data with geographic, demographic, and economic information, among others, to achieve effective results supporting community resilience requires:
- Providing detailed, geographically specific climate risk data to guide adaptation strategies in local communities. State governments should take the lead in managing geographic climate risk data and developing local staff capabilities to interact with climate-related data by enhancing “green jobs” and offering technical training programs.
- Establishing a central climate data office to act as a regional repository for climate risk data, facilitating information exchange about programs that help households and communities build climate adaptation capacity.
- Leveraging various records maintained by cities and counties to make climate data more useful within available capabilities while ensuring the accuracy of property databases at the local level.
In conclusion, there is growing public awareness of the economic, social, and human costs of not adequately protecting communities from climate change, which necessitates that central and local government officials, business leaders, and civil organizations use all available tools, including climate data and analytics, to design and implement effective strategies for community resilience.
Source: Jenny Schuetz., Adie Tomer., Julia Gill, and Caroline George, How climate risk data can help communities become more resilient: Insights from San Diego, Brookings Institution, December 2023.
