Abstract
Significant advances have been made to understand the interrelationship between humans and the environment in recent years, yet research has not produced useful localized estimates that link population forecasts to environmental change. Coarse, static population estimates that have little information on projected growth or spatial variability mask substantial impacts of environmental change on especially vulnerable populations. We estimate that 20 million people in the United States will be affected by sea-level rise by 2030 in selected regions that represent a range of sociodemographic characteristics and corresponding risks of vulnerability. Our results show that the impact of sea-level rise extends beyond the directly impacted counties due to migration networks that link inland and coastal areas and their populations. Substantial rates of population growth and migration are serious considerations for developing mitigation, adaptation, and planning strategies, and for future research on the social, demographic, and political dimensions of climate change.
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Notes
The 10 m low elevation coastal zone defined by McGranahan et al. (2007) represents an upper bound for defining populations at risk for inundation. Throughout this paper, we take a more conservative approach by defining at-risk areas as those susceptible to a 1-4 m increase in sea level.
The metropolitan areas susceptible to inundation include Portland, Maine; Boston, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; New York and the greater New York metro area, including Long Island; Wilmington, Delaware; Baltimore, Maryland; Norfolk-Hampton, Virginia; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Jacksonville, Fort Myers, St. Petersburg, and Pensacola, Florida; Mobile, Alabama; New Orleans, Louisiana; Oakland, San Francisco, and Sacramento, California; and Seattle, Washington.
In its most general meaning, vulnerability implies ‘‘susceptibility to loss or harm’’ (Eakin and Luers 2006).
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by funds to Curtis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School and by the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station. The authors wish to acknowledge Paul Voss, Jennifer Huck, and Bill Buckingham of the Applied Population Laboratory for technical assistance, Jack DeWaard for invaluable research assistance, and Halliman Winsborough, the editor, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions.
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Curtis, K.J., Schneider, A. Understanding the demographic implications of climate change: estimates of localized population predictions under future scenarios of sea-level rise. Popul Environ 33, 28–54 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-011-0136-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-011-0136-2