Socioeconomic vulnerability and climate risk in coastal Virginia

Abstract

Coastal Virginia, a region with economic and strategic significance at the state and national level, has been experiencing the highest sea-level rise (SLR) on the Atlantic coast of the United States. This has been accompanied by a variety of climate hazards such as flooding and more frequent storms, initiating adaptation planning and decision-making on multiple governance levels. A spatial understanding of climate risk and its associations with socioeconomic vulnerabilities raises essential questions about the underlying roots of such associations and can help local governments prioritize social vulnerabilities in their adaptation efforts. Using coastal flooding as a climate stressor in this region, this paper conducts analyses that strive to help policymakers more effectively utilize social vulnerability in adaptation planning. The analysis reveals significant associations between climate risk, represented by flood risk, and social vulnerability measures such as poverty, access to infrastructure, education, and housing in certain parts of coastal Virginia. The paper then discusses how associations between vulnerability and climate risk in the region could influence policymaking on the local and state level. This research presents several empirical relationships that raise important questions regarding the drivers of social equity in the face of climate adaptation in coastal Virginia. The methodology developed in this study may be modified to assess social equity in climate adaptation in other coastal communities in the United States and possibly other countries. Such modification can help to illuminate the associations between location-specific social vulnerabilities, such as social safety net policies, and climate risks.

Keywords

• Socioeconomic vulnerability
• Climate risk
• Climate adaptation
• Coastal Virginia
• Coastal flooding
• Risk modeling