1

Introduction

Millions of people in the United States and millions more across the globe are at risk of displacement as a result of the effects of climate change (Global Report on Internal Displacement, 2023). In the U.S. Gulf Coast Region (spanning the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas), flooding due to sea level rise and storm surge, subsidence, and land loss are increasing the potential for displacement of individuals, towns, and entire cities, including Indigenous communities. These effects compound other climate-related hazards, including damage to vital infrastructure (e.g., water, sewage, electricity, health care facilities, and roads); the release of pollutants due to storm damage; and heat exposure (Field et al., 2012; Oppenheimer et al., 2014). Such hazards have already contributed to substantial displacement.

Disaster displacement is not a new phenomenon, but addressing it equitably poses a multitude of challenges for residents and community stakeholders across sectors and jurisdictions. Displacement can change all aspects of daily living, such as housing, community and cultural ties, employment, access to health care, availability of safe drinking water and other services, food sufficiency, and household wealth (Hori & Schafer, 2010). In a region with a high potential for annual disasters, like the U.S. Gulf Coast Region, displacement, or the threat of it, often affects people who have survived the stress and accrued trauma of one or more disasters (e.g., Hurricane Katrina survivors impacted by Hurricane Harvey, see Eugene, 2017; see also Hu et al., 2021). Measures can be taken to support people who must move “out of harm’s way,” yet very few communities are preparing for, or managing the risk of, displacement (Siders, 2019). Some

reasons include limited relocation policies and technical support, limited resources—including funding—deep-seated connections to place, or a propensity to “protect in place.”

With increasing numbers of weather- and climate-related disaster events with losses over 1 billion dollars in Gulf Coast states (235 from 1980 to August 8, 2023), with twice as many events per year from 2018 to 2022 as in the previous years, and extraordinary human impacts (deaths of 15,971 people as of August 8, 2023; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] National Centers for Environmental Information, 2023), the consideration of how to reduce such impact fundamentally questions whether to begin discussions about relocating “people and assets out of harm’s way” (Siders, 2019, p. 216).

In 2021, the Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies) funded a consensus study to examine and analyze the unique challenges, needs, and opportunities associated with managing climate-related retreat in the U.S. Gulf Coast Region.¹ The Board on Environmental Change and Society in the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education convened a committee of experts to provide in-depth analysis and identify short- and long-term steps necessary for community stakeholders and government agencies to plan and implement the movement of people away from high-hazard areas in ways that are equitable, culturally appropriate, adaptive, and resilient to future regional climate conditions. Box 1-1 contains the full study charge. The committee members brought knowledge, experience, and expertise in domains including decision making, communication and public participation, governance, demography, climate adaptation, environmental science, public policy and law, urban and regional planning, environmental and community health, the social and behavioral sciences, and the humanities.² Committee member biographies are provided in Appendix A.

RESPONSE TO THE CHARGE

The committee’s primary goal with this report is to provide valuable guidance about how to study, plan, and implement relocation efforts that are equitable, culturally appropriate, adaptive, and resilient to future regional climate conditions. The committee hopes to serve community stakeholders from across sectors (e.g., government, industry, academia,

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¹ In 2013 the GRP was formed using funding from the criminal settlement following the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster and was created to “advance and apply science, engineering, and public health knowledge to reduce risks from offshore oil spills and will enable the communities of the Gulf to better anticipate, mitigate, and recover from future disasters.” More information about the GRP is available at https://www.nationalacademies.org/gulf/about

² As noted in the front matter, Harriet Festing resigned from the committee in December 2022, reducing the current committee to 13 members.

nonprofits, community members) and jurisdictions (e.g., local, regional, state, federal), as well as the needs of the study sponsor, the GRP of the National Academies, as it develops a research agenda for future programming and relevant fields of study, such as those that address the complex psychological and socioeconomic realities inherent in relocation as an adaptive strategy to climate change.

As discussed throughout this report, concerns of the community members the committee engaged with over the course of the study included the need for community-led decision making and engagement; the need for effective communication and outreach; the need for self-determination and tribal sovereignty; a lack of available resources to assist with decision making; a lack of an equitable process to become involved in relocation processes; and the importance of the preservation of social cohesion and the protection of traditional and cultural practices.

The committee therefore used a variety of means to solicit comments from members of these groups, and paid particular attention to ways of hearing from those who lack access to adequate resources (e.g., transportation, housing) and those whose voices are often silenced in decisionmaking processes (e.g., traditionally underrepresented groups). In addition to residents facing displacement or barriers to relocation, the committee also engaged with and emphasizes the diverse array of entities, groups of people, and individuals that are often the first to respond when disaster strikes (e.g., emergency managers, leaders of community- and faith-based organizations, nonprofits, local government). Many of these individuals and entities are poised to participate in shaping climate adaptation policies that can decrease the suffering of communities and decrease the loss of life and infrastructure before disasters, including preparation for the slower onset of climate change impacts, like sea level rise. The engagement process with this array of stakeholders is described later in this chapter; here, the committee highlights some of the types of groups the committee engaged with during the writing of this report and hopes to reach through its publication.

Gulf Coast Communities

This report is intended as a resource for Gulf Coast communities and individuals, not limited to but including those who are contemplating, undertaking, or facing barriers to relocation (including systemic issues such as structural racism), as well as individuals who have resettled and people in communities that have received such individuals. This audience includes Gulf Coast Indigenous communities, who are dealing with some of the worst land loss in the region, and immigrant groups from Africa, Latin

America, the Caribbean, Acadia (present-day Canada), and Asia, as well as other traditional populations that inhabit the U.S. Gulf Coast Region.³

Community-Based Organizations

These organizations and the people they serve are generally not well resourced unless they are associated with a national organization and often struggle to be heard; thus, the committee prioritized elevating their voices and their cause.

Regional Organizations, Commissions, and Entities

These government, nongovernment, and quasi-governmental bodies (e.g., Federal Regional Commissions) guide development of public/private resources to ensure public safety, well-being, and livability, and often play a boundary-spanning role in connecting communities and entities across jurisdictions and geographic scales. Such entities are often responsible for maintaining a variety of long-range planning projects (e.g., related to transportation, infrastructure, environment) required to keep their jurisdictions’ eligibility for federal funding. These projects are prioritized based on the planning process. The committee hopes that such groups can use this report to leverage efforts for climate adaptation and planning, to help justify relocation and other long-term adaptation initiatives that span jurisdictions, to assist with large-scale infrastructure projects and have capacity to coordinate with multiple municipalities, and possibly to inform both Metropolitan Planning Organizations (which exist in urban areas where there are more than 50,000 people) and Regional Transportation Planning Organizations.

State Agencies

State agencies and offices that are responsible for housing, planning, floodplain management, resource allocation, and coastal zone management (e.g., public works, community development, resilience and sustainability offices) are a critical audience for this report. Such entities could use this report to inform land-use decisions; service implementation; the coordination of residents, businesses, and ecosystems; and plans for protecting resources in instances of climate- and environment-induced relocations.

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³ The committee defines “traditional population” as a self-identified group with long-standing residence in a particular place with livelihoods and other cultural practices that are intertwined with the local environment and resources. It may be indigenous or have roots in Europe, Africa, Asia, or other parts of the Americas.

State Legislatures

The committee hopes that state legislatures—which are responsible for researching, drafting, and passing legislation and whose members represent their districts and work to meet citizens’ requests for assistance with a variety of issues—can use this report to support the enactment of policies and possibly facilitate the establishment of regional planning entities within or between states.

Municipal, Parish, and County-Level Government Officials

Officials at these levels inform community planning, including comprehensive plans, local hazard mitigation plans, climate adaptation plans, and others. These officials often have capacity constraints that prevent adequate responses to chronic disasters, yet they are among the first to notice increases in the frequency of extreme weather events that lead to increased displacement. This report is intended as a resource for those officials in developing plans and policies to support their communities, including communities that are willing to receive those who have been displaced. One reality this report could help to address at this level is the fact that counties and parishes on the Gulf coastline are more densely populated and have higher median incomes in comparison to many inland Gulf region counties and parishes (Kerry Smith & Whitmore, 2020; Mack, 2018; U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). For example, the report could inform a potential collaboration between the National Association of Counties (NACo)—whose mission is to strengthen America’s counties and who advocates for county priorities in federal policy making to optimize taxpayer contributions—and municipal, parish, and county-level government officials, to plan and incentivize better building practices and reduce insurance claims, among other actions.⁴

Federal Agencies and Other Audiences

The committee also considered ways this report could support other audiences. Federal agencies have limited funds to support relocation and want to be diligent in utilizing existing funds. There is no one federal agency charged with the authority to lead relocation efforts, though a recent Government Accountability Office report (2020a) highlights the need for a “climate migration” pilot program to reduce federal fiscal exposure. In answer to this need, the White House launched a Community-Driven Relocation Subcommittee as part of the White House National Climate Task Force in August 2022. This interagency subcommittee is co-led by the

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⁴ More information about NACo is available at https://www.naco.org/counties

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI; FEMA, 2022a).⁵ Although the present report focuses on the Gulf region, our recommendations also apply at the national scale to the efforts of the Community-Driven Relocation Subcommittee.

This report may also assist government agencies in justifying the expenditure of taxpayer money by providing evidence-based information to support decisions and prioritization of relocation projects and initiatives. The recommendations in this report (Chapter 11) align with a series of federal reports that consider relocation as an adaptive strategy to build a more climate resilient nation while also fostering and enhancing community well-being, and the inherent relationship between well-being and climate resilience. The U.S. Congress was tasked with multilateral engagement in mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change in The White House Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration (2021).⁶ DOI’s Climate Action Plan (2021) recognizes relocation as part of a “whole-of-government approach” (p. 2),⁷ while the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Climate Resilience Implementation Guide for Community Driven Relocation provides a step-by-step guide for communities.⁸ Finally, the first ever White House National Climate Resilience Framework identifies specific opportunities for action for funding, supporting, expediting, and evaluating community-driven relocation.⁹

Finally, the committee also hopes this report will support researchers in identifying promising future research goals, pairing research with practice, and establishing academic and community-based partnerships.

SCOPE OF GEOGRAPHY AND HAZARDS

The regional focus of this study adds a layer of complexity to its geographical scope. The primary geographic focus in this study is on the coastal and peri-coastal jurisdictions (e.g., counties, parishes, cities, towns)

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⁵ More information about this subcommittee is available at https://www.fema.gov/fact-sheet/fema-efforts-advancing-community-driven-relocation

⁶ The White House Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration is available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Report-on-the-Impact-of-Climate-Change-on-Migration.pdf

⁷ More information about DOI’s Climate Action Plan is available at https://www.sustain-ability.gov/pdfs/doi-2021-cap.pdf

⁸ More information about HUD’s Climate Resilience Implementation Guide for Community Driven Relocation is available at https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/Climate-Resilience-Implementation-Guide-Community-Driven-Relocation.pdf

⁹ More information about the National Climate Resilience Framework is available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/National-Climate-Resilience-Framework-FINAL.pdf

of the entire Gulf Coast (see Figure 1-1), which is an area that generally aligns with the state coastal zone boundaries of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Office for Coastal Management (NOAA, 2012) and which contains the NOAA-designated coastal shoreline counties of the Gulf Coast.¹⁰ However, retrieving data from only this swath of the Gulf region is difficult, and data are often unavailable for some jurisdictions. Therefore, throughout this report, statewide data for the Gulf region (Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas), in addition to coastline data, are utilized. Importantly, places along the Gulf Coast or in the greater Gulf region operate as both originating communities (places from which people relocate), such as Houston, Texas, and Houma, Louisiana, and receiving communities (places to which people relocate; Junod et al., 2023). Additionally, communities receiving Gulf residents could be in other regions of the country and the world.

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¹⁰ More information about NOAA’s state coastal zone boundaries is available at https://coast.noaa.gov/data/czm/media/StateCZBoundaries.pdf

The U.S. Gulf Coast Region experiences increasingly intense tropical cyclones, which bring strong winds, heavy rain, storm surge, and high waves, and sea level rise is increasing (see Chapter 2); both of these can result in an abundance of water from various forms of flooding (e.g., pluvial, fluvial, riverine; Needham et al., 2012). Nevertheless, the committee decided against focusing the report on only an abundance of water or on any one climate threshold or hazard. Instead, we chose to examine processes for how, why (and why not), and where people and infrastructure relocate, which could be due to a variety of hazards (e.g., wildfires, land subsidence) or other environmental threats to health and well-being (e.g., airborne toxins, soil and water contamination). In other words, the committee chose to acknowledge the drivers of migration and displacement, specifically in the Gulf region (e.g., coastal hazards), but to focus the scope of the study on relocation challenges, opportunities, lessons learned, and processes (e.g., decision making, engagement, communication, transparency). Our focus is on examples from the context of environmental and climate change impacts, but we also take into account other dynamics of displacement, including broader social and economic factors. For example, at the committee’s second workshop in St. Petersburg, Florida, Dr. Tisha Holmes, assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University, commented on how insurance costs and other factors weigh into people’s decisions to stay or leave.

People are juggling these decisions to stay or leave in response to a variety of things—policy incentives and mandates, having access to resources, what the employment landscape looks like, what those pressures around housing and insurance costs are, and having those strong place-based connections and social networks.¹¹

The committee sought to understand the Gulf Coast simultaneously as a region of deep and diverse cultural and social ties to community and place, a key producer of fossil fuels and petrochemical products and services, a destination for recreationists and retirees, a region with cutting-edge research centers and universities, a major source of marine resources and fisheries, and a harbinger of the nation’s experience with the effects of climate change.

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¹¹ Comments made to the committee on July 12, 2022, during a public information-gathering session in Florida. More information is available at https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/07-12-2022/managed-retreat-in-the-us-gulf-coast-region-workshop-2

UNDERSTANDING MANAGED RETREAT

To meet the study charge, the committee deemed it important to consider what is meant by the term “managed retreat” and thus to identify the scope of our inquiry. As the study charge notes, “managed retreat” is a phrase used by some researchers and policy makers to describe organized efforts to relocate and resettle individuals and communities and to move infrastructure away from hazardous areas (Carey, 2020; Pinter, 2021a; Siders, 2019). Managed retreat is often understood as a deliberate adaptation to a changing climate and associated altered local environmental conditions as well as the increase in environment-related risks that accompany climate change—and it is often framed as a last resort (Siders, 2019). Specifically, scholars have suggested that to count as managed retreat, an effort would include (a) intent by a significant segment of a community and/or external decision makers advising that a community relocates, (b) planning across jurisdictions and sectors, and (c) proactivity (i.e., a collective taking action in response to current and anticipated impacts of environmental hazards (Ajibade et al., 2020; Hawai’i Coastal Zone Management Program, 2019; Koslov, 2016; Pinter, 2022; Siders, 2019; World Bank, 2019b).

“Managed retreat” is most commonly used to describe a broad array of practical and policy applications associated with climate-related relocation. However, in practice, both the term itself and the concept that it denotes are often defined or applied in different ways (e.g., “managed retreat” might, in different cases, be used to indicate individual household relocation or whole community relocation). This inconsistency comes in part because managed retreat is deeply complex; it entails a wide range of decisions about public goods and policies that cannot be easily compartmentalized into an episode of a single, well-managed process of “retreat.” Instead, decisions about relocation may be responses to a series of tipping points that each comprise adaptation in a local context but together, over time, result in a large-scale change. Depending on the context, a managed retreat might be constrained by degree (e.g., level of resources committed), timing (e.g., action preceding, during, or after a triggering event), and scale (e.g., individual, community, municipality, state, regional). Decisions regarding who might move, when, and to where, as well as practical questions about how the movement of people, communities, and infrastructure could actually take place, are among some of the sources of controversy within and between frontline communities and the actors involved in relocation initiatives (Anderson, 2022; Maldonado et al., 2020).

In short, “managed retreat” and related terms (e.g., individual household relocation, whole community relocation, assisted resettlement) are used inconsistently. The committee’s efforts to develop a working definition of the term for the purposes of this report raised important questions that

we consider throughout. The remainder of this section gives an overview of some of the key issues encountered in these efforts. The committee also found that doing this work resulted in the clarification of the report’s scope—namely, its focus on the role of the community in relocation undertaken in response to climate change. In the section that follows this one, we offer “community-driven relocation” as a preferred alternate term and use this term when referring to our conclusions and recommendations throughout the report.

Who Is Doing the Managing?

One key issue the committee encountered when seeking to define “managed retreat” is the question of who (e.g., community, entity) is actually, or could be, managing the retreat of communities from environmentally high-risk areas. Much of the scholarship discusses managed retreat as some form of assistance offered from outside the community, usually by a government, that often includes financial and technical support through various mechanisms (Dundon & Abkowitz, 2021), including the private sector (e.g., the firm CSRS served as the prime consultant and lead engineer on the Isle de Jean Charles relocation project).¹² As such, managed retreat entails implicit or explicit decisions about who oversees each element of the process. Such decisions determine important things within the process: Who creates and decides the logic and scale of movement (e.g., valuation, displacement, reparation, resettlement)? Who has agency, controls decision making, and executes the process of removing and resettling communities? Who makes plans, has control over components of the process, legislates, and provides funds? What are the best processes for identifying the commonwealth interests of communities and the lands to which they are bound and connected by time, culture, and tradition?

In the United States, there is no comprehensive federal plan for how to undertake a managed retreat; there is no single federal-level funding stream, agency, or statute that directs state governments, local governments, or communities about how to begin such an endeavor. The committee notes that historically within the United States (Chapter 3) and internationally (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Japan), governments and communities have engaged with and applied the concept of managed retreat more explicitly. In the absence of federal guidance for funding, planning, and implementing managed retreat, it can be difficult to answer the questions above (i.e., deciding who is overseeing each element of the process)

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¹² The Isle de Jean Charles project is discussed more in Chapter 3. More information about the firm, CSRS, is available at https://www.csrsinc.com/post/idjc-phase-2-report-now-available

in ways that result in community-driven decision making, effective use of resources, and equitable processes.

The statement of task charges the committee to identify “short- and long-term steps necessary for community stakeholders to plan and implement the movement of people,” but the charge does not specify whether the committee should also consider the preconditions necessary for communities to entertain the idea of relocating as a full community (i.e., people and infrastructure) or in some other fashion. In light of the questions above, the committee determined that one critical precondition is the development of a clear and equitable decision-making process that identifies who manages portions of the retreat process at a range of levels (i.e., local, regional, state, federal).

What Is the Scale of the Proposed Retreat?

Another set of questions concerns the scale of a managed retreat. Scale raises questions around what distinguishes managed retreat from other types of migration. How many people need to be involved, for example? If a government offers a flood buyout option to an entire neighborhood, but only one household accepts the offer, is that a managed retreat, whether successful or unsuccessful? If several households decide to sell their homes and move to another town without outside financial assistance, is that a managed retreat? Similarly, could climate migrations that take place over time (e.g., atomistic, individual families moving over a decade) or a slower retreat that happens in stages (e.g., incremental retreat from the shoreline, or “up the bayou”) be considered forms of managed retreat?

What are the timescales for taking action to prevent the worst consequences of the changing climate for a particular region such as the Gulf Coast (Oppenheimer et al., 2019)? While a proactive approach has been useful for prevention of hazards from acute disasters such as hurricanes or wildfires, what does it mean to anticipate incremental or slow disasters, such as sea level rise, subsidence, erosion, or rising heat intensity, accentuated by copious precipitation and floods or tropical cyclones, that have already begun to affect human health and lives? How are adaptations to anticipated environmental hazards identified? Through what processes are they implemented to ensure the equitable and culturally appropriate relocation of people? What are relevant timescales for community-level adaptation in relation to the changing climatic conditions? How does “managed retreat” align with, disrupt, or intersect with broader ongoing and previous migrations in, out, and across the Gulf region—including migration as climate adaptation that is not necessarily or neatly “managed” (e.g., evacuations, pre- and post-disaster displacement, unassisted family or community-driven relocation)?

What Is the Difference Between Managed Retreat and Other Forms of Relocation?

In developing a common definition of “managed retreat,” it is tempting to use the questions listed above—who manages the retreat, what type of relocation (e.g., buyouts), at what scale—to distinguish managed retreat from other forms of migration and relocation. However, understanding managed retreat solely through the lens of these questions tends to produce a too-narrow definition that centers somewhat arbitrary metrics over community response, therefore, over community needs. For example, property acquisitions (i.e., buyouts) are the most institutionalized, the most common, and the most studied form of assisted relocation in the United States (see Chapters 3, 9, and 10 for more about buyouts). They may be carried out by any jurisdiction of government, by private nongovernment entities, or by a combination. If there is buyout assistance during property acquisitions but no support mechanisms in the receiving communities, does relocation become a managed retreat? In other words, is a set of circumstances only considered a managed retreat if support systems for successful integration in the new location are part of the assistance offered? Or is the government offering a property buyout sufficient to be considered a managed retreat?

The questions discussed in the sections above are not easy to answer, but iterating them helped the committee understand the importance of expanding and broadening the definition of “managed retreat” specifically to position it as a community-driven climate adaptation strategy. For millennia, people have been moving within, across, and in and out of the Gulf region for the purpose of adapting to both climate and non-climate factors. Thus, the committee determined that establishing arbitrary boundaries around types and scales of relocation as metrics for what does and does not qualify as managed retreat per se did not serve a purpose for the committee. Rather, the committee focuses on a definition of “managed retreat” that centers the response to climate change. On the one hand, this capacious definition allows for the development of more equitable, community-driven responses (e.g., policies) to the specific threats these groups face, and on the other hand, centers decision making about options for communities in the face of threats to habitability squarely in the affected communities.

Management of climate-related relocation could consist of assistance by an external agent, usually a government entity or entities; leadership from within the community itself; or a combination. For example, a managed retreat could include a situation where the government provides relocation funding, but the community directs how it is used, determining when retreat is considered, where residents will relocate to, and how the process is undertaken. The process might entail a move from a single home, a longstanding place-based community, or sovereign tribal lands—or all three. It

might involve multiple communities, parishes, trans-state boundaries, jurisdictions, watersheds, and ecosystems. The following section discusses the need to keep affected communities at the center of decision making in any “managed retreat” scenario, including in the terminology used in discussing this complex topic, and puts forward “community-driven relocation” as a term more in line with that stance.

COMMUNITY-DRIVEN RELOCATION

Increasing numbers of U.S. inhabitants and those of other countries will need to leave home because of diminishing habitability in the face of climate change (Lee et al., 2023). Terminology about this relocation is important, not least because communities have emotional, symbolic, physical, and economic attachments to place (Chapters 4 and 5). As discussed in the previous section, the term “managed retreat” is most commonly used to describe a broad array of practical and policy approaches. However, the term and concept rest on different assumptions and evoke different associations for different communities. Moving away from specific hazards may entail loss of homeland, community, and the stability and safety therein, even as it is also a movement toward another kind of safety (i.e., an area of less environmental risk). For example, the historical legacies of the Gulf Coast—including the history of forced removal of Indigenous and African peoples from lifeways and places they were or are deeply attached to, and the broader history of their enslavement and disenfranchisement—mean that some groups and individuals regard “managed retreat” as another iteration of the economic, commercial, cultural, and political exploitation and isolation they have experienced in the past (Jessee, 2022) and continue to experience (Chapter 4).

The committee learned from workshops, information-gathering sessions, and published literature that the term “managed retreat” may trigger emotion and trauma. The committee recognizes that some Indigenous leaders consider the concept of managed retreat to be an extension of colonial and imperialist policy that extracted resources and exterminated people. For example, Chief Parfait-Dardar of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw has argued, “The only people who should be managing a retreat, if that is what they so choose, is the community and they should be in charge of the terminology and ways of thinking about their resettlement” (Comardelle et al., 2020).

The committee does not believe the term “managed retreat” captures the key element that would ideally be part of any adaptive solution—the equitable and effective involvement of the affected communities at every stage

of the relocation and resettlement process. The Climigration Network¹³ published a guidebook, informed by interviews with community members from across the United States, that breaks down the term’s connotations: “Managed” implies top-down processes suggesting power dynamics and feelings of powerlessness over outcomes. “Retreat” left community members feeling hopeless, guilty, and inadequate (Climigration Network, 2021). For some, “retreat” is associated with intergenerational memories of violent relocations like the Indian Removal Act of 1830 (see Chapter 4 for more).¹⁴ The committee also learned that some communities interpret “retreating” as a loss of homeland, while others see it as a movement toward safety.

Thus, this report uses “community-driven relocation” to encompass both the abstract concept and key social dimensions that illuminate opportunities and practices that implement relocation in equitable, culturally appropriate, and participatory ways. A community-driven approach contrasts with the largely ad hoc, post-disaster reactive approach to mitigation and adaptation. Ad hoc approaches impede the fostering of trust and create barriers to genuine collaborative engagement and decision making. Instead, community-driven approaches could address what may be entrenched perceptions of government and institutionalized factors underpinning vulnerability. Additionally, the term “community-driven relocation” aligns with nascent relocation initiatives by federal agencies (e.g., HUD, FEMA, DOI).¹⁵ To denote the communities that people are moving away from, this study uses the term “originating community;” to denote communities that people are relocating to, the committee adopted the term “receiving community.”

The committee recognized the importance of shared decision making in any policy-supported and institutionalized process of relocation. Specifically, shared decision making in community-driven relocation processes would mean that

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¹³ More information about the Climigration Network is available at https://www.climigration.org/mission-history

¹⁴ Forced displacements of Indigenous peoples are not unique to the Gulf region. In Alaska, the Bureau of Indian Affairs forced nomadic Indigenous tribes to settle in coastal areas vulnerable to sea level rise and erosion (see Welch, 2019).

¹⁵ HUD released the “Climate Resilience Implementation Guide,” which provides guidance on how to scope community-driven relocation as a solution to multiple natural hazards. More information is available at https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/Climate-Resilience-Implementation-Guide-Community-Driven-Relocation.pdf. Additionally, the White House established the Community-Driven Relocation Subcommittee in August 2022, which is led by FEMA and DOI. More information is available at https://www.fema.gov/fact-sheet/fema-efforts-advancing-community-driven-relocation

• the originating community is at the center of decision making about relocation and needs for well-being;
• policy and material supports are provided for optimally enlarging a community’s option for a safe landing in the receiving community or relocation destination; and
• supports are provided for the receiving community, including land-use planning, economic investments, and social resilience.

The committee also found that the term “managed retreat” captured too narrow of an array of relocation circumstances because it implies a rare case of wholesale community relocation from point A to point B at a discreet point in time rather than the diversity of circumstances described above (e.g., single home, sovereign tribal lands, incremental migrations); additionally, the term managed retreat could not account for the long-game notion of adaptive governance (described below). Thus, the term “community-driven relocation” allows for consideration of how to create a fabric of policy and infrastructure that can offer a safety net for a variety of successful relocation efforts.

For the purposes of the present report, a “community” is “a geographically defined collection of people at a subnational and substate level of jurisdiction […] that could be regions such as a metropolitan statistical area; rural villages or townships sharing similar environmental, cultural, or political ties; politically bounded places such as counties, cities, water districts, or wards within cities; or culturally defined places such as neighborhoods or street blocks that are greater than an individual household, parcel, or built project” (National Academies, 2019a, p. 13).

Disaster Recovery Model Versus Year-Round Support

A major obstacle to achieving equitable and community-driven relocation is that relocation planning is currently managed using a “disaster-recovery model” (Johnson & Olshansky, 2017; Olshansky & Johnson, 2010; Schwab, 2014)—meaning that much of the available funding, planning, and technical assistance comes episodically as a reaction to a specific disaster or in the form of annual nationally competitive programs rather than being available year-round and allocated based on risk and need, including the need to address the root causes of vulnerability. These compressed timeframes inhibit effective community engagement, collective decision making, and collaborative planning processes. In the U.S. Gulf Coast Region, communities often experience repetitive and/or annual disasters, which can result in a perpetual cycle of recovery and blur the distinction between the pre- and post-disaster state of being—for example, as in the cases of Hurricanes Zeta (2020) and Ida (2021) in southeastern Louisiana,

and Hurricanes Laura and Delta (both in 2020) in southwestern Louisiana. One of the goals of this report, as discussed further in Chapters 9 and 10, and elsewhere, is to emphasize the importance of relocation funding, programming, and planning to be available and accessible year-round. A system that provides these resources regularly would enable at-risk communities to consider relocation as a viable option if they desire to move whether before or after a disaster, in addition to considering alternatives to relocation, as discussed in the next section.

Alternatives to Relocation

A great deal of emphasis in recent years has been placed on climate-induced relocation strategies, including in this report and many others (Carey, 2020; Hanna et al., 2019; Siders, 2019; Siders et al., 2019). However, along the Gulf Coast, there has been an overall lack of discussion about such strategies (see Chapter 8). Alternatives that are discussed tend to focus on avoiding development in flood-prone areas altogether or suggest that relocation is a last resort, although the latter argument has been criticized as being politically expedient rather than proactive and truly transformative (Hanna et al., 2019; Mach & Siders, 2021). It is also important to recognize that many communities are opposed to a strict reliance on relocation, often adopting measures emphasizing protect-and-accommodate strategies or a “hybrid approach” that includes a mix of protection, accommodation, relocation, and avoidance policies and associated projects (Mach & Siders, 2021; Smith, Saunders et al., 2021).

The reluctance to adopt a uni-dimensional approach to relocation (i.e., adopting and applying a too-narrow definition of managed retreat) is reflected in the comments of many of those invited to speak on this topic, particularly residents currently living in flood-prone areas. For instance, Gordon Jackson, board president of the Steps Coalition in the Biloxi and Gulfport area of Mississippi, noted that the “goal is not relocation and replacement; [it] may be a case in isolated instances, but our resources right now are going towards resilience, restoration, and revitalization.”¹⁶ While many academics and government officials emphasized the need for relocation, the option of “managed retreat” or “community-driven relocation” has not become a standard part of local government plans (e.g., hazard mitigation plans, comprehensive plans) for cities, counties, or parishes along the Gulf Coast. David Perkes, director of the Gulf Coast Community Design

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¹⁶ Comments made to the committee on March 30, 2022, during a virtual public information-gathering session. More information is available at https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/03-30-2023/virtual-focus-group-mississippi-and-alabama-gulf-coast-community-stakeholder-perspectives-on-managed-retreat

Studio,¹⁷ has positioned his work as an alternative to a strict adherence to managed retreat. Rather, through deep community engagement and empowerment, he has focused on helping low- and moderate-income individuals become more resilient in-place by designing safer homes and communities that account for flood risk. Further research and practice-based guidance are needed to understand the ways in which communities can balance the adoption of a range of adaptation measures not necessarily limited to relocation. The focus of this report, however, is on making community-driven relocation one of the multiple adaptation measures communities may consider.

ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE

Government entities across jurisdictions, businesses, and civil society face many challenges surrounding the prospects of single community relocations and larger climate-induced regional migrations and displacements (Hino et al., 2017). Part of this challenge is the cross-jurisdictional (e.g., interstate and intrastate) and cross-sector planning that such relocations necessitate. This report identifies these challenges and identifies strategies for civil and equitable engagement and planning, as well as policy solutions. Thus, a theme that has guided the committee’s work throughout is that of adaptation and, specifically, adaptive governance.

Adaptation and Adaptive Governance

Cultural adaptation to environmental change occurs at many levels—from the individual to the family or household to the community to the state, as well as the institutions and social networks that link them—and through a variety of processes—including mobility, intensification, diversification, innovation, rationing, pooling, and even revitalization of historical practices (Thornton & Manasfi, 2010). Adaptive governance can be broadly defined as “a range of interactions between actors, networks, organizations, and institutions emerging in pursuit of a desired state for social-ecological systems” (Chaffin et al., 2014, p. 1). It is a concept that emerges from the need to intentionally shift human behavior, values, or norms at multiple levels to avoid existential threats from environmental change. Adaptive governance enables such shifts by making traditional government more agile, flexible, and continuously responsive, and thus sensitive to the complex dynamics, disruptions, and uncertainty of changing social-ecological systems. In contrast to more conventional, often rigid, governing arrangements,

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¹⁷ Ibid.

adaptive governance takes as its guiding principle the imperative to adjust and evolve across multiple organizational levels and geographic scales (Folke et al., 2005).

Adaptive governance is sometimes conceptualized as a cycle of human-environmental interactions, feedbacks, social learning, and collective response. This adaptive cycle is associated with the concept of social-ecological resilience (Biggs et al., 2015) and institutional design principles for managing commons (Ostrom, 1990), including, ultimately, Earth’s systems. Accordingly, adaptive governance requires certain basic features to succeed. First are flexible and responsive institutions, both formal and informal, which must be inclusive and possess avenues for communication and participatory dialogue among actors to build trust, accountability, and a shared vision of governance (Dietz et al., 2003; Olsson et al., 2006). A second key feature is functional and durable social networks with the capacity to link and coordinate diverse actors and interests across multiple levels and scales (Sharma-Wallace et al., 2018). A third feature is organizational capacity. This includes the capacity for institutions to be flexible and responsive at different scales in order to broaden participation; monitor social-environmental feedbacks; make and enforce rules; engage in continuous learning, including through experimentation; and leverage opportunities to transition systems onto sustainable pathways (Folke et al., 2005). The magnitude and multitude of effects of environmental changes on the Gulf Coast could serve as a catalyst to develop a multi-level, multi-scale adaptive governance system for the region.

Resilience and Adaptive Governance

At the level of human communities, adaptive governance can improve resilience and well-being (e.g., social, mental, physical health) by reducing what is sometimes referred to as the climate resilience gap: “The scope and extent of climate change-driven conditions for which people (individuals, communities, states, and even countries) remain unprepared, leaving them open to potentially harmful impacts” (Union of Concerned Scientists [UCS], 2016, p. 2). In practice, this means both adapting to environmental impacts that cannot be mitigated (or mitigated in the near term) and mitigating those impacts that human actions can reduce as threats to human wellbeing. This two-front approach to minimizing the resilience gap works best under an adaptive governance model that is attentive to both adaptation and mitigation processes and to the requisite social capacities for resilience (UCS, 2016, p. 2).

THE STUDY PROCESS

The committee put considerable emphasis on ways to hear from and interact with residents of the Gulf region, traveling to five locations to hold hybrid public workshops (see Box 1-2). The committee also held two additional virtual information-gathering sessions. The primary goal of these activities was to elevate the voices of communities and individuals contemplating, resisting, undertaking, or facing barriers to relocation (including systemic issues such as structural racism), as well as individuals who have resettled and people in communities that have received such individuals. Each information-gathering session included community testimonials and panels of local decision makers and experts discussing processes, challenges, and opportunities that communities encounter with respect to the study’s statement of task. Testimonials from workshop participants, including those from residents on the front line of Gulf Coast climate impacts, are interspersed throughout the report. The workshops in Louisiana included a closed session site visit of the Bayou Region of southeastern Louisiana. Published proceedings provide additional information about these workshops (National Academies, 2022c,d, 2023a). More information about the information-gathering sessions is available at the webpages for those events, and a complete list of people that participated in information-gathering sessions is contained in Appendix B.¹⁸

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¹⁸ More information about the information-gathering sessions is available on the event webpages (in order of occurrence):

1. Workshop 1, Part 1 (Houston): Buyouts and Other Forms of Strategic Relocation in Greater Houston: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/06-08-2022/managed-retreat-in-the-us-gulf-coast-region-workshop-1
2. Workshop 1, Part 2 (Port Arthur): Strategic Relocation and Environmental Perception: Community Perspectives from Port Arthur, Texas: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/06-08-2022/managed-retreat-in-the-us-gulf-coast-region-workshop-1
3. Workshop 2: Opportunities & Challenges of Climate Adaptation on Florida’s Gulf Coast: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/07-12-2022/managed-retreat-in-the-us-gulf-coast-region-workshop-2
4. Workshop 3, Part 1: Community Viability and Environmental Change in Coastal Louisiana: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/07-26-2022/managed-retreat-in-the-us-gulf-coast-region-workshop-3-part-1
5. Workshop 3, Part 2: Assisted Resettlement and Receiving Communities in Louisiana: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/07-28-2022/managed-retreat-in-the-us-gulf-coast-region-workshop-3-part-2
6. Virtual Roundtable Discussion: Perspectives and Approaches to Property Acquisitions: Challenges and Lessons Learned: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/12-13-2022/managed-retreat-in-the-us-gulf-coast-region-perspectives-and-approaches-to-property-acquisitions-challenges-and-lessons-learned
7. Virtual Focused Discussion: Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast Community Stakeholder Perspectives: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/03-30-2023/virtual-focus-group-mississippi-and-alabama-gulf-coast-community-stakeholder-perspectives-on-managed-retreat

The locations and attendees of the hybrid and virtual information-gathering sessions were selected to maximize the diversity of experiences and perspectives the committee would hear. However, time and funding limited the reach of these workshops, which could not fully cover an area as large as the Gulf region nor allow for enough time to fully hear perspectives on relocation from non-Gulf residents. In an attempt to address these constraints, the committee opened a public comment portal on the study webpage and advertised its interest in hearing from the public through National Academies listservs, social media, and the committee’s own networks. Thirty comments were submitted: 23 from the Gulf region and six from outside the Gulf. These perspectives shaped and enhanced the development of this report.

In addition to the public sessions, the committee held 11 closed session committee meetings to deliberate the statement of task, review the outcomes of public sessions, and share experiences and expertise in the field as relevant to the study charge. The committee also reviewed a substantial body of evidence-based literature, including national and international case studies of community relocation. As described in Chapter 3, relocation case studies in the United States before the year 2000 were summarized primarily from the works of Pinter (2021a,b, 2022), among others. Case studies after 2000 were selected by the committee based on geographic and demographic diversity and type of hazard (Chapter 3).

During the course of the study, relocation as a climate adaptation strategy became increasingly part of national public discourse and polarizing

(Carey, 2020), as did the term “managed retreat” (Bromhead, 2022; Mulkern, 2021). Therefore, in addition to policy briefs, reports, and academic literature, the committee also collected grey literature, which is cited in this report, to understand current opinions and accounts of relocations from a diversity of perspectives.

Study Limitations

The committee feels it is also important to acknowledge several key limitations to the study. Though the committee made assiduous efforts to understand the perspectives of residents of the Gulf region through a variety of public information-gathering sessions (see below), it recognizes that these efforts could only provide snapshots of a few places and a small number of voices. Additionally, although all public meetings (e.g., workshops, virtual meetings) were hybrid, the committee acknowledges that some people could not travel and did not have the technological means to participate virtually. Another limitation is that the committee did not hear from many young people (e.g., children, adolescents, teenagers), whose perspectives are critical for the future (Moder & Otieno, 2022; Pandve et al., 2009; United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, 2015, 2021). Additionally, the committee heard from a small number of people on the receiving end of the relocation process but found that receiving communities have been much less studied than communities whose residents are compelled to move. Recent reports by the Urban Institute did provide a useful analysis of Gulf Coast areas that became receiving communities for people displaced by tropical cyclones.¹⁹

Furthermore, the literature and ongoing research about relocation is vast, interdisciplinary, and dynamic, and includes research about locations across the globe (see O’Donnell, 2022). Thus, a comprehensive review of relocation is challenging. The committee did not have the capacity to cover every important element related to community-driven relocation in detail, including policies that aim to reduce the need for relocation, such as those that encourage construction outside floodplains or limit the ability of people to obtain mortgages inside a floodplain.

REPORT STRUCTURE

The report is organized in three parts. The first part, Introducing Community-Driven Relocation, clarifies the scope and the committee’s interpretation of the study charge (Chapter 1); follows with an overview of the complex climate- and non-climate-related environmental threats to the Gulf

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¹⁹ More information about the Urban Institute study is available at https://www.urban.org/projects/climate-migration-and-receiving-community-institutional-capacity-us-gulf-coast

Region that will continue to compel relocation (Chapter 2); and concludes with a historical account of U.S. relocation strategies from the late 19th century to the present day and current national and international relocation case studies that illustrate various funding sources, policy adjustments, and relocation strategies (e.g., buyouts; Chapter 3).

Part 2, Understanding Relocation in the Gulf Region, begins with a history of the region, focusing on how adaptation and movement have been defining features before, during, and after European colonization, and examines historical legacies that are critical to consider in the planning and implementation of community-driven relocation strategies in the Gulf Region (Chapter 4). Chapter 5 explains prevailing demographic shifts and migration trends that are currently defining the environment in the region and provides summaries of community profiles for communities across the Gulf Coast that the committee engaged. These include St. Petersburg, Florida; Mobile County and the community of Bayou La Batre, Alabama; Harrison County and the community of Turkey Creek, Mississippi; southeastern Louisiana, including Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes; as well as Houston and Port Arthur, Texas. Complete community profiles are contained in Appendix C. The profiles combine quantitative and qualitative analyses to illustrate how and why communities across the region are vulnerable to increasing climate change risks. Chapter 6 provides an in-depth analysis of individual and community social, mental, and physical well-being, and looks at how climate impacts, coupled with elements such as social capital and place attachment, influence the decision-making process when communities consider relocation. Chapter 7 identifies the active involvement of impacted individuals, the role of social capital through civic leadership and networking, effective risk communication, and active participation as crucial elements for successful community-led relocations. Part 2 concludes by considering the specific needs of originating and receiving communities, including the importance of partnership building between these communities and regional entities (Chapter 8).

Part 3, Funding, Policy, and Planning, broadens out from a focus on the Gulf region to examine the landscape of funding and policy associated with climate-impacted communities at a variety of jurisdictional scales and the challenges and opportunities therein. Chapter 9 explores existing legal frameworks, administrative bodies, programs, and plans that are available to facilitate relocation and considers how to make these more inclusive of and responsive to the needs of originating and receiving communities. As mentioned above, an important part of these considerations involves shifting from a disaster recovery model to a system that provides year-round support for individuals and communities who wish to consider relocation as an adaptation strategy. Chapter 10 examines numerous challenges that

households, local and state governments, and other community stakeholders might face when navigating the relocation process considering the framework laid out in Chapter 9, including the role of insurance, benefit-cost analysis, and household eligibility, among others, with specific attention to the buyout process alongside other relocation strategies. Finally, the committee’s recommendations are highlighted in the final chapter (Chapter 11) with additional examples and supporting text about implementation and process. Key terms and their definitions are contained in a glossary in Appendix D.