Impacts of disaster exposure on climate adaptation injustice across U.S. cities

Abstract

Climate disasters have become more frequent, more extreme, and more often coincide in different places and among diverse residents. Characteristics of residents like races are often associated with differing levels of vulnerability to climate disasters. Developing adaptation strategies that provide just and equal protection to diverse population groups has become an urgent concern. Here, we examine the spatial and quantitative distribution of 3,466 adaptation actions reported over the past five years among 983 U.S. urban counties with different racial groups and socioeconomic statuses. Our findings reveal significant and growing disparities in climate adaptation among U.S. urban counties with overrepresented White, Black and Asian residents. We also find that the local level of disaster exposure plays an unignorable role in deriving racial disparities in adaptation actions. Disaster exposure, characterized by expected annual loss, has a stronger impact on adaptation policymaking in urban counties with high proportions of Asian or Black residents, compared to those with high proportions of White residents. With limited adaptation resources, focusing heavily on areas with high exposure to disaster damages might hinder adaptation actions to protect vulnerable individuals, households and communities and thus exacerbates racial disparities in climate adaptation and causes adaptation failure of racially minority groups. Our study provides novel empirical evidence for researchers and decision-makers on the evaluation of justice in climate adaptation. The co-present disparities between climate disaster exposure and adaptation actions can serve as an indicator of the societal need for adaptation actions to be equally developed and implemented.