Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Analysis
  • Published:

Risk of isolation increases the expected burden from sea-level rise

Nature Climate Change volume 13, pages 397–402 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

The typical displacement metric for sea-level rise adaptation planning is property inundation. However, this metric may underestimate risk as it does not fully capture the wider cascading or indirect effects of sea-level rise. To address this, we propose complementing it by considering the risk of population isolation: those who may be cut off from essential services. We investigate the importance of this metric by comparing the number of people at risk from inundation to the number of people at risk from isolation. Considering inundated roadways during mean higher high water tides in the coastal United States shows, although highly spatially variable, that the increase across the United States varies between 30% and 90% and is several times higher in some states. We find that risk of isolation may occur decades sooner than risk of inundation. Both risk metrics provide critical information for evaluating adaptation options and giving priority to support for at-risk communities.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: The number of people burdened by SLR is significantly higher when the risk of isolation is considered, rather than only the risk of inundation.
Fig. 2: Comparison of risk of inundation and isolation for the coastal United States.
Fig. 3: Residents may become isolated long before they are expected to be displaced due to SLR.
Fig. 4: Time lag between onset of isolation and inundation by SLR.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Data and results are presented on our interactive dashboard https://research.urbanintelligence.co.nz/slr-usa. Network nearest distance data are available on request. The remaining data are publicly available and detailed in Methods.

Code availability

Code is available at https://github.com/urutau-nz/usa_slr.

References

  1. Hauer, M. E., Evans, J. M. & Mishra, D. R. Millions projected to be at risk from sea-level rise in the continental United States. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 691–695 (2016).

  2. Nicholls, R. J. et al. Sea-level rise and its possible impacts given a ‘beyond 4 °C world’ in the twenty-first century. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A 369, 161–181 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Herreros-Cantis, P., Olivotto, V., Grabowski, Z. J. & McPhearson, T. Shifting landscapes of coastal flood risk: environmental (in)justice of urban change, sea level rise, and differential vulnerability in New York City. Urban Transform. 2, 9 (2020).

  4. Oppenheimer, M. et al. in Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (ed. Pörtner, H.-O. & Roberts, D. C.) Ch. 4 (IPCC, 2019).

  5. Jasour, Z. Y., Reilly, A. C., Tonn, G. L. & Ferreira, C. M. Roadway flooding as a bellwether for household retreat in rural, coastal regions vulnerable to sea-level rise. Clim. Risk Manag. 36, 100425 (2022).

  6. Jacobs, J. M., Cattaneo, L. R., Sweet, W. & Mansfield, T. Recent and future outlooks for nuisance flooding impacts on roadways on the U.S. East Coast. Transp. Res. Rec. 2672, 1–10 (2018).

  7. Hummel, M. A., Tcheukam Siwe, A., Chow, A., Stacey, M. T. & Madanat, S. M. Interacting infrastructure disruptions due to environmental events and long‐term climate change. Earth’s Future 8, e2020EF001652 (2020).

  8. Hauer, M., Mueller, V. & Sheriff, G. US commuting delays from tidal flooding worsen with sea level rise. Preprint at Research Square https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-861767/v1 (2021).

  9. Wrathall, D. J. et al. Meeting the looming policy challenge of sea-level change and human migration. Nat. Clim. Change 9, 898–901 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Sun, J., Chow, A. C. H. & Madanat, S. M. Equity concerns in transportation infrastructure protection against sea level rise. Transp. Policy 100, 81–88 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Pregnolato, M., Ford, A., Glenis, V., Wilkinson, S. & Dawson, R. Impact of climate change on disruption to urban transport networks from pluvial flooding. J. Infrastruct. Dev. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000372 (2017).

  12. Hauer, M., Mueller, V., Sheriff, G. & Zhong, Q. More than a nuisance: measuring how sea level rise delays commuters in Miami, FL. Environ. Res. Lett. 16, 064041 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Logan, T. M. & Guikema, S. D. Reframing resilience: equitable access to essential services. Risk Anal. 40, 1538–1553 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Anderson, M., Kiddle, D. & Logan, T. The underestimated role of the transportation network: improving disaster and community resilience. Transp. Res. Part D 106, 103218 (2022).

  15. Sanderson, D., Cox, D., Barbosa, A. & Bolte, J. Modeling regional and local resilience of infrastructure networks following disruptions from natural hazards. J. Infrastruct. Syst. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000694 (2022).

  16. Gold, A. C., Brown, C. M., Thompson, S. P. & Piehler, M. F. Inundation of stormwater infrastructure is common and increases risk of flooding in coastal urban areas along the US Atlantic coast. Earth’s Future 10, e2021EF002139 (2022).

  17. Bosserelle, A. L., Morgan, L. K. & Hughes, M. W. Groundwater rise and associated flooding in coastal settlements due to sea‐level rise: a review of processes and methods. Earth’s Future 10, e2021EF002580 (2022).

  18. Plane, E., Hill, K. & May, C. A rapid assessment method to identify potential groundwater flooding hotspots as sea levels rise in coastal cities. Water 11, 2228 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Knott, J. F., Daniel, J. S., Jacobs, J. M. & Kirshen, P. Adaptation planning to mitigate coastal-road pavement damage from groundwater rise caused by sea-level rise. Transp. Res. Rec. 2672, 11–22 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Knott, J. F., Elshaer, M., Daniel, J. S., Jacobs, J. M. & Kirshen, P. Assessing the effects of rising groundwater from sea level rise on the service life of pavements in coastal road infrastructure. Transp. Res. Rec. 2639, 1–10 (2017).

  21. Matini, N., Qiao, Y. & Sias, J. E. Development of time–depth–damage functions for flooded flexible pavements. J. Transp. Eng. B https://doi.org/10.1061/JPEODX.0000352 (2022).

  22. Allen, T. R. et al. Linking water infrastructure, public health, and sea level rise: integrated assessment of flood resilience in coastal cities. Public Works Manag. Policy 24, 110–139 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Dempsey, N., Bramley, G., Power, S. & Brown, C. The social dimension of sustainable development: defining urban social sustainability. Sust. Dev. 19, 289–300 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Geurs, K. T. & van Wee, B. Accessibility evaluation of land-use and transport strategies: review and research directions. J. Transp. Geogr. 12, 127–140 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Sweet, W. V. et al. Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States: Updated Mean Projections and Extreme Water Level Probabilities Along U.S. Coastlines (NOAA, 2022); https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/noaa-nos-techrpt01-global-regional-SLR-scenarios-US.pdf

  26. Howden, M. & Jacobs, K. L. in The US National Climate Assessment: Innovations in Science and Engagement (eds Jacobs, K. et al.) 157–171 (Springer International, 2016).

  27. Mach, K. J. et al. Managed retreat through voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties. Sci. Adv. 5, eaax8995 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Thiele, B. The human right to adequate housing: a tool for promoting and protecting individual and community health. Am. J. Public Health 92, 712–715 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Siders, A. R. Social justice implications of US managed retreat buyout programs. Clim. Change 152, 239–257 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Stephens, S. A., Bell, R. G. & Lawrence, J. Developing signals to trigger adaptation to sea-level rise. Environ. Res. Lett. 13, 104004 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Haasnoot, M., Kwakkel, J. H., Walker, W. E. & ter Maat, J. Dynamic adaptive policy pathways: a method for crafting robust decisions for a deeply uncertain world. Glob. Environ. Change 23, 485–498 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Haasnoot, M., Lawrence, J. & Magnan, A. K. Pathways to coastal retreat. Science 372, 1287–1290 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  33. Brovelli, M. A., Minghini, M., Molinari, M. & Mooney, P. Towards an automated comparison of OpenStreetMap with authoritative road datasets. Trans. GIS 21, 191–206 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. El-Ashmawy, K. L. A. Testing the positional accuracy of OpenStreetMap data for mapping applications. Geod. Cartogr. 42, 25–30 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Neis, P. & Zielstra, D. Recent developments and future trends in volunteered geographic information research: the case of OpenStreetMap. Future Internet 6, 76–106 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Boeing, G. OSMnx: new methods for acquiring, constructing, analyzing, and visualizing complex street networks. Comput. Environ. Urban Syst. 65, 126–139 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Manson, S., Schroeder, J., Van Riper, D., Kugler, T. & Ruggles, S. IPUMS National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 16.0 (IPUMS, 2021).

  38. 2020 TIGER/Line Shapefiles (machine-readable datafiles) (US Census Bureau, 2020).

  39. Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data https://hifld-geoplatform.opendata.arcgis.com/ (HIFLD, 2021).

  40. Pregnolato, M., Ford, A., Wilkinson, S. M. & Dawson, R. J. The impact of flooding on road transport: a depth-disruption function. Transp. Res. Part D 55, 67–81 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Logan, T. M. et al. Evaluating urban accessibility: leveraging open-source data and analytics to overcome existing limitations. Environ. Plan. B 46, 897–913 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  42. Hauer, M. E. Migration induced by sea-level rise could reshape the US population landscape. Nat. Clim. Change 7, 321–325 (2017).

  43. LEHD Origin–Destination Employment Statistics Data (2002–2019) (US Census Bureau, 2022).

  44. Siri, E., Siri, S. & Sacone, S. Network performance evaluation under disruptive events through a progressive traffic assignment model. IFAC-PapersOnLine 53, 15017–15022 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank D. Niemeier, National Academy of Engineering (NAE), for her review and comments. This research was supported by the National Academies Gulf Research Program Early-Career Research Fellowship and the National Science Foundation (grant no. 1940273). The support of the sponsors is gratefully acknowledged. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academies or the National Science Foundation. We also thank the University of Canterbury’s Cluster for Community and Urban Resilience (CURe) and the Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    T. M. Logan & M. J. Anderson

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    A. C. Reilly

Authors
  1. T. M. Logan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. M. J. Anderson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. A. C. Reilly
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

T.M.L. was involved in conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, data curation, writing the original draft and reviewing and editing, visualization, supervision, project administration and funding acquisition. M.J.A. contributed to methodology, software, formal analysis and data curation. A.C.R. undertook conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing the original draft and reviewing and editing, visualization and funding acquisition.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to T. M. Logan.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

T.M.L. and M.J.A. have shares in the risk consulting firm Urban Intelligence. A.C.R. declares no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Climate Change thanks Adam Gold, Robert Kopp and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Logan, T.M., Anderson, M.J. & Reilly, A.C. Risk of isolation increases the expected burden from sea-level rise. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 397–402 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01642-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01642-3

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing