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Abstract Actions to reduce flood risk often appear to run counter to other societal goals, and resolving these conflicts is important as flood adaptations increasingly transform settlements and societies. Here, we evaluate the tensions between flood risk reduction and other priorities in the context of voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties in the United States—a controversial flood response to restore land to open space, but with trade-offs. We apply a nation-wide systematic review (133 literature references, 1983–2023) to assess goals stated for buyouts and combine it with a comprehensive media analysis (281 media articles, 1993–2023) to compare those goals to the experiences and results perceived by buyout implementers, residents, and other practitioner groups. Across the systematic-review literature, flood risk reduction dominates goals expressed for buyouts (62.6% of documented goals), and local government predominates in this goal setting (61.7% of documented goals). However, involved and affected actors—especially residents—perceive outcomes beyond flood risk reduction, most notably in the experiences of buyout implementation itself (35.5% of documented resident perceptions) and in results impacting social and economic priorities (49.5%). Despite the difficulties of buyouts, the systematic-review literature largely reflects positive perceived outcomes (79.4% of outcome sentiments, weighing each buyout location equally), but nonprofit organizations and residents perceive largely negative outcomes. Media coverage related to buyouts is more negative than positive but with improved sentiments through time. Our findings point to the importance of designing, implementing, and evaluating flood adaptations not just as flood control measures given their consequences for other societal objectives. The uneven documentation on buyouts also implies opportunities to learn from contexts where buyouts have been integrated into everyday life with little fanfare, through mechanisms either novel or perhaps routine, yielding insights into making ambitious climate adaptations a common, more ordinary, and increasingly imperative occurrence. 

Abstract Moving away from hazardous areas may be an important adaptive response under intensifying climate change, but to date such movement has been controversial and conducted with limited government or private-sector support. Research has emphasized resident perspectives on mobility, but understanding how professionals view it may open new avenues to shape future outcomes. Based on 76 interviews with professionals involved in climate responses in South Florida, we evaluate perceptions of adaptation goals, the potential role of climate mobilities in pathways supporting those goals, and associated constraints and enablers. The practitioners interviewed anticipate multiple types of climate mobilities will occur in the region, at increasing scales. Interviewees perceive climate mobilities at present, especially migration and gentrification where climate plays some role, as causing distributional inequities and financial and sociocultural disruptions, and they view existing adaptive strategies as best serving those who already have adequate resources, despite practitioners’ personal commitments to social justice goals. Although many practitioners feel prepared for their own, limited roles related to climate mobilities, they judge the region as a whole as being unprepared to support the retreat they see as inevitable, with a need for a more ambitious long-term transition plan. Achieving this need will be difficult, as practitioners indicate that climate mobilities remain hard to talk about politically. Nevertheless, interviewees believe some households are already considering moving in response to climate risks. Discussions of climate mobilities, through interviews and far beyond, may encourage more mindful choices about and engagement in climate-driven transformations. 

Development patterns and climate change are contributing to increasing flood risk across the United States. Limiting development in floodplains mitigates risk by reducing the assets and population exposed to flooding. Here, we develop two indexes measuring floodplain development for 18,548 communities across the continental United States. We combine land use, impervious surface, and housing data with regulatory flood maps to determine what proportion of new development has taken place in the floodplain. Nationwide from 2001 to 2019, 2.1 million acres of floodplain land were developed, and 844,000 residential properties were built in the floodplain. However, contrary to conventional perceptions of rampant floodplain development, just 26% of communities nationwide have developed in floodplains more than would be expected given the hazard they face. The indexes and the analyses they enable can help guide targeted interventions to improve flood risk management, to explore underlying drivers of flood exposure, and to inform how local‐to‐federal policy choices can be leveraged to limit hazardous development. 

Flood damage has severe and long-term repercussions for households and communities, and continued housing development in floodplains escalates damages over time. Policies and interventions to reduce damage depend on assumptions about housing stock and residents, but assessments of flood exposure to date largely focus on community-scale characteristics at a single point in time, masking potential within-community differences and their evolution through time. We measure residential development in the floodplain nationwide over time to characterize the type and value of U.S. floodplain housing stock and to assess how new development contributes to flood exposure. Over 4M U.S. residences built from 1700 to 2019 (4.8% of all residences built during that time) are located within current regulatory floodplains. These residences are concentrated at the affordable and expensive extremes of the housing value spectrum, reflecting deep differences in the social vulnerability of floodplain residents. Floodplain housing stock often differs substantially from the local market, with coastal floodplains containing relatively expensive housing and inland floodplains containing relatively affordable housing. New housing development has not occurred equally across these contexts. In the past two decades, more floodplain development has occurred in communities with relatively expensive floodplain housing, and mobile home construction in floodplains has slowed. The bifurcated patterns in floodplain housing, across values and geographies, demonstrate the importance of considering the specific population at risk and how it may differ from the broader community when tailoring flood risk management approaches.