Relocation outcomes for participants in U.S. property buyouts: a systematic, nationwide analysis
Abstract
As the climate continues to change, retreat as a form of climate mobility will become increasingly important, and inevitable in some locations. Voluntary property buyouts are one example of managed retreat, where homeowners sell their property to the government, and land is restored to open space. Buyouts of flood-prone properties funded by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are among the longest-running and largest examples of managed retreat globally. While over 40,000 properties have been acquired in 49 different states, little is known about how buyouts affect the safety or wellbeing of participating households. We combined address-level data with a nationwide real-estate dataset of property deed transactions to identify around 9,500 buyout deed transactions in 500 counties in 46 states. These are then used to find the relocation destinations, making this the largest assessment of buyout outcomes for participating homeowners to date. Our results identify common relocation destinations, enabling further investigation of how those receiving communities are affected. To assess the nature of the move and its effect on participating homeowners, we determine the distance of the move and explore ways in which the relocation may have changed homeowners' flood risk and neighborhood-level social vulnerability. We use Census data such as income, racial diversity, and population density to assess social vulnerability of neighborhoods. Initial results suggest that, in line with previous research, most buyout participants relocate locally, and the majority of homeowners relocate out of the floodplain. Importantly, for at least 4,500 buyouts of manufactured homes (i.e., mobile homes) and rental properties, the resident is not a property owner who can be tracked in the real-estate dataset, and the relocation address cannot be determined. These gaps are concerning, because they involve households at greater risk of adverse outcomes associated with relocation and displacement. This analysis represents a first crosscutting analysis of how buyouts affect the participating households. Assessment of the full experience of retreat for all affected communities is critical for improving buyout processes and programs, including at potentially greater scales into the future.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMGC0400007K
- Keywords:
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- 9810 New fields (not classifiable under other headings);
- GENERAL OR MISCELLANEOUS;
- 1622 Earth system modeling;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 4327 Resilience;
- NATURAL HAZARDS