Adaptive resilience consists of actions carried out before, during and after disasters to anticipate and minimize loss and disruption. One mode of such adaptation is to relocate - often locally - from housing in areas where related risks are already high and rising. The US government has been helping to fund this type of adaptation for decades, with the largest program funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Zoom in and click areas of interest in the interactive map below to see how many people have moved from FEMA buyout areas nationwide - both through the program, which demolishes housing on exit, and outside it, which simply transfers associated risks to the next incumbents.
* Local Buyout Areas are defined here using a half-mile buffer around each participating "buyout" address registered by FEMA as occurring during 2007-2017. Source: National Public Radio.
** Address-level data on origin and destinations come from annual consumer files produced by Data Axle, 2007 to 2022. Only moves trackable with these data are presented. (Destination addresses are randomly blurred to within 0.25 miles to maintain confidentiality.)
Read more about the tool and its relevance in our piece in The Conversation.
Map created by CFAR with assistance form Rice University's Center for Research Computing.