![]() It occurred more than four decades before US disasters became the responsibility of the federal government. Niobrara, Nebraska, is the earliest well-documented US wholesale flood relocation. The stories of these towns and the new communities they attempted to build show that managed retreat is not just a theoretical exercise each case study offers key data for planning and implementing such projects in the future. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently “identified few communities in the United States that have considered climate migration as a resilience strategy, and two … that moved forward with relocation.” The GAO and others seem to be unaware that the United States actually has a long history of managed retreat and community relocations. The relocation of entire communities, in particular, offers up tantalizing benefits over piecemeal buyouts or removal from at-risk locations wholesale relocation can eliminate flood risk or other hazards while maintaining the social fabric of a community. Managed retreat is often framed as an alternative to engineering-focused, defend-in-place strategies like the colossal seawall recently proposed for Miami. In light of these projections, a number of new, expensive, and publicly contentious managed-retreat projects are already being discussed, planned, and implemented. By 2100, nearly 500 US coastal communities and 4.2 million US residents could face disruptive inundation, and worldwide damages and fatalities from flooding could more than double. ![]() As more communities face threats from rising sea levels and climate-induced flooding, a rich 140-year history of relocation projects offers valuable insights.Īs communities across the United States and around the world are increasingly threatened by climate-driven flooding and sea-level rise, academic researchers and disaster managers alike agree that managed retreat-the abandonment of occupied land and the removal or relocation of population and infrastructure-will eventually be unavoidable. ![]()
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