Employment accessibility and rising seas

Abstract

Recent projections suggest worst-case scenarios of more than six ft (1.8 m) of global mean sea-level rise by end of century, progressively making coastal flood events more frequent and more severe. The impact on transportation systems along coastal regions is likely to be substantial. An analysis of impacts for Atlantic and Cape May counties in southern New Jersey is conducted. The impact on accessibility to employment is analyzed using a dataset of sea-level increases merged with road network (TIGER) data and Census data on population and employment. Using measures of accessibility, it is shown how access will be reduced at the block-group level. An additional analysis of low and high income quartiles suggest that lower-income block groups will have greater reductions in accessibility. The implication is that increasing sea levels will have large impacts on people and the economy, and large populations will have access to employment disrupted well before their own properties or places of employment may begin to flood (assuming no adaptation).