Kelsea Best, Assistant Professor, Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering, The Ohio State University
Title: Climate justice and isolation due to sea level rise in the U.S.
Abstract: Within coastal communities, sea level rise (SLR) will result in widespread intermittent flooding and long-term inundation. Inundation effects will be evident, but isolation that arises from the loss of accessibility to critical services due to inundation of transportation networks may be less obvious. While the typical metric for assessing SLR burdens is inundation, this metric may significantly underestimate the risk to coastal communities. This talk will present the risk of isolation as a metric, beyond inundation, to measure burdens of SLR associated with the disruption of access to essential services. This talk will also examine who is most at risk of isolation due to SLR, which can inform community adaptation plans and help ensure that existing social vulnerabilities are not exacerbated. Combining socio-demographic data with an isolation metric, social and economic disparities in risk of isolation under different SLR scenarios (1-10 ft) for the coastal U.S. are evident. Black and Hispanic populations face a disproportionate risk of isolation at intermediate levels of SLR (4 ft and greater). Further, census tracts with higher rates of renters and older adults consistently face higher risk of isolation. These insights point to significant inequity in the burdens associated with SLR.
