Inside Climate News: “The Sunbelt’s Growing Population Faces Increasing Climate Hazards”
This story details a new study led by RFF Senior Nonresident Fellow David Wear, who analyzed the growing vulnerability of the Southeast to climate risks.
Counties across the southern half of the United States, especially those with large and socially vulnerable populations, will be much more exposed to wildfire, drought and extreme heat than other parts of the country as the region’s climate warms in the coming decades, according to new research from the US Forest Service and Resources for the Future.
The report, “Changing Hazards, Exposure, and Vulnerability in the Conterminous United States, 2020–2070,” builds on the Forest Service’s 2020 Resources Planning Act Assessment, which makes 50-year projections on the conditions of renewable resources across the country’s forests.
In the study, researchers identified the continental US counties that are especially exposed to natural disasters stemming from water shortages, extreme heat and wildfires, as well as those with socially vulnerable populations. The study’s various models, based on rates of growth and warming, show communities from Arizona to Florida at particular risk as states in the southern half of the country are seeing booming populations, long-standing inequities in their communities and increasing climate-driven threats.
