Headline

Black Communities Affected Unequally By Increasing Flood Risk

 United States

Heavy rain and storm surge from Hurricane Ida caused flooding from Louisiana to New England in September 2021. Homes in the town of French Settlement, La., were still underwater four days after the storm made landfall. Climate change is driving more flood risk in the U.S. (Credit: Bill Feig/AP)

Increasing flood risk driven by human-caused climate change will disproportionately harm Black communities in the South, new research published in Nature Climate Change finds. According to the study, Appalachia and the Northeast currently have higher flood risks, and flood damage will increase by more than 26% nationwide in the next 30 years. “Poorer, Whiter communities bear that historical flood risk, but the people that are bearing a disproportionate burden of those new risks are typically Black communities across the Southeast,” Oliver Wing, the study’s lead author, told the Washington Post.

(NPR, Washington Post $, NBC, The Conversation; Climate Signals background: Flooding)

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