Many of the coastal cities of Hampton Roads are dealing with both sea level rise and land subsidence which increases the risk of flooding and impacts the lives and daily routines of residents. Respondents were asked to describe the risk to their city, neighborhood, and home/property due to severe flooding from sea level rise over the next 30 years. Nearly half of residents surveyed reported some risk of severe flooding to their city and 22.2% believe their city is at a high risk. Regarding flooding in their neighborhood over the next 30 years, 38.6% of residents believe there is some risk and 14.4% believe their neighborhood will be at high risk in the future. Residents were also asked about the risk of flooding to their home/property and 32.8% believe their home/property has some risk for severe flooding and 10% of residents believe their home/property is at a high risk of severe flooding over the next 30 years.
The risk of serious flooding and the resulting impacts can vary across the Hampton Roads area and the perceptions of residents regarding that risk can vary considerably as well. We computed a composite scale based on the three flooding risk items, measuring overall risk of severe flooding to ones city, neighborhood and residents own home or property1. Overall, levels of perceived risk vary significantly across cities with Norfolk and Portsmouth residents reporting the highest level of overall risk (8.9 and 8.7), followed by Virginia Beach (8.0). Chesapeake and Hampton had midrange scores of 7.3 and 7.7, while Newport News and Suffolk residents reported a lower level of potential risk in their cities under 7.0 (6.8 and 6.6, respectively).
1The three items were highly inter-correlated and formed a reliable scale (Cronbachs alpha = .851) measuring overall projected risk of severe flooding due to sea level rise. The scale ranges from three (reporting no risk to all three questions) to 12 reporting high risk to all three questions. The average or mean score was 7.8.
The figure below shows city variation in residents who think their city is at high risk for severe flooding in the next 30 years. Well over a third of Norfolk and Portsmouth residents (~37%) and more than a quarter of Virginia Beach residents (27.9%) reported a high risk of severe flooding in the next 30 years. About 13-14% of Chesapeake and Hampton residents project a high risk of severe flooding, while less than 10 percent of Newport News and Suffolk respondents rate their citys risk as high (5.6 and 8.7%, respectively).
Hampton Roads residents were also asked about the effects of flood risk on property values in their area. Over half of respondents (57.7%) reported that the flood risk has had no impact on property values. More than a quarter of respondents (27%) reported a somewhat decrease in property values in their area and 5.7% reported greatly decreased values in their area.
Looking more closely at the survey item if flood risk has affected property values in ones area, we find that responses to this question varied significantly across cities and several demographic variables. As shown in the figure below, there is significant variation across cities in the belief that the risk of flooding had somewhat or greatly decreased property values. Nearly half (47.1%) of the residents of Norfolk believe that flooding has decreased property values in their area. A little over a third of Portsmouth (36.2%) and Virginia Beach residents (35%) believed that flooding had a negative effect on property values and just over 30% of Hampton resident felt this way. Nearly a quarter of Newport News residents (23.2%) felt that the risk of flooding had decreased property values while only 17% of Suffolk residents felt this way.
At nearly 40%, African Americans are significantly more likely than whites (29.2%) or those describing themselves otherwise (28.6%) to believe that flooding risk has decreased property values in the area where they live.
The most highly educated respondents were less likely to think the risk of flooding has decreased property values in their area than those with less education. Just over a quarter (26.3%) of respondents with bachelors degrees or higher reported that the risk of flooding has greatly or somewhat decreased property values where they reside while more than a third of those respondents with a high school degree or less (36.1%) responded this way as did those with some college or an associates degree.
We also find that the respondents with lower household incomes also report decreased property values in their area due to risks of flooding. As can be seen in the figure below, about 45% of the respondents reporting less than $15,000 or between $15,000 and $30,000 in household incomes (45.7% and 44.2%, respectively) believe that the risk of flooding has somewhat or greatly decreased property values where they live. This percentage drops significantly as self-reported household incomes increase to 11.4% of those who report household incomes greater than $200,000. These results, which indicate that African Americans as well as persons with less education and wealth are more greatly affected by flood risk, have been found elsewhere2. Although the relationship can be complex, these data show that lower socioeconomic status is related to vulnerabilities due to flooding.
Residents were asked if flood risk information influenced their decisions about their current housing in Hampton Roads and the majority of residents (73.8%) said the flood risk information did not influence their decisions. Of the respondents who indicated they were influenced by the flood risk information, 62.8% believe flood risks significantly influenced their choice of neighborhood, 37.2% were significantly influenced whether to buy or rent their home and 21.3% reported that flood risks influenced some other aspects of their housing decision. Of those respondents who reported they were not influenced by flood risk information, 56% said they were aware of flood risk information, but that information did not influence their current housing decision and 43.6% were unaware of any flood risk information before making a decision about their current housing.
2 See for example, :
