Staying Put: The Uncertainty of Climate Change and Residential Immobility

• In Event: 41016 - Disaster and Questions of Place

Abstract

As rising global temperatures increase the size and scope of climate-related disasters, households in vulnerable communities face the challenge of assessing their risk and deciding whether and how to respond. While public discussion of retreat from disaster-prone regions has grown, existing work illustrates that most disaster-affected households remain in place. When residential immobility is conceptualized as an active process, rather than a passive state of inaction, it raises key questions about the underpinning factors that facilitate this choice in the wake of disaster. Drawing on longitudinal interviews with 59 households over two years after Hurricane Harvey, we find that the uncertainty about future flood risk facilitates post-disaster immobility. Regardless of residents’ views on the likelihood of flooding – from those who describe another flood as imminent to those who viewed Harvey as a once-in-a-lifetime storm – nearly all express uncertainty about their risk assessments. While residents were clear that they did not want to go through another flood, uncertainty about when or if their homes would flood again – combined with factors like place attachment, economic considerations, and the lack of an alternative residential plan – supported a decision to remain in place. In the face of uncertain risk, decisive and immediate action appears less necessary. Our findings have implications for understanding immobility in the wake of climate-related hazards, and for growing theorization about the role of uncertainty in decision-making.

Authors

• Max Besbris, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Anna Rhodes, Rice University

• Christine Jang-Trettien, CUNY