Sea-level rise maps can decrease risk perceptions in coastal communities

Based on Mildenberger, M., Sahn, A., Miljanich, C., Hummel, M., Marlon, J. and Lubell, M. Unintended consequences of using maps to communicate sea-level rise. Nature Sustainability (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01380-0.

Top-down maps can reduce concern about sea-level rise - but information about altered commute times enhances concern

The Policy Problem

Sea-level rise (SLR) caused by climate change poses enormous social and economic costs to coastal communities around the world. By 2100, hundreds of millions of people in these coastal communities are estimated to be impacted by sea level rise. However, governments and coastal residents are still not taking the mitigation and adaptation steps necessary to protect their communities and property. One common strategy for increasing local action has been sharing maps of projected local flooding. How effective are these sea-level rise maps? Do they increase public concern about SLR and boost support for adaptation policies?

Key Findings and Proposed Solutions

  • Top-down maps of projected sea-level rise can generate backlash: reducing concern about sea-level rise impacts. This is even true among coastal US residents whose personal properties are projected to flood this century

  • Providing these same coastal residents information about altered commute times from sea-level rise does increase concern among these same households

  • We hypothesize that risk communication related to other types of critical infrastructure such as water availability and wastewater services may be more effective than future flood risk

  • Risk communicators need to empirically test their communication strategies before investing in large-scale climate adaptation campaigns