Will Sacramento metro area see mass abandonment due to rising climate risks?
A new report says Sacramento County could lose more than a quarter of its population by 2055 due to increased climate risks. The data is from First Street, a climate risk prediction firm that provides data for sites like Zillow and Redfin. The report points to catastrophic flooding, rising temperatures and worsening air quality as the primary climate risks in the Sacramento metro area. “The Central Valley in California, both the San Joaquin Valley in the south and the Sacramento Valley to the north, are actually very flood-vulnerable places,” said University of California climate scientist Daniel Swain. “In some ways, they’re among the most flood-vulnerable places in all of the United States.”That flood risk is why Sacramento has worked to build an extensive network of flood protection, like levees. But, as Swain pointed out, there are limits to any flood protection system, and we are likely to see larger flood events than we saw in the 20th century.”The challenge is, is the climate changing in a way that is potentially outpacing some of those flood protection adaptations that we’ve seen,” Swain said. These are factors First Street likely took into consideration when naming Sacramento County a top five climate abandonment county in the United States. But does the county really stand to lose 28% of its population by 2055? S.F. Chronicle deputy data director Aseem Shukla looked into what the data really means. Shukla said a catastrophic flood event is not the type of thing that will happen every five or 10 years, “but when it does happen, it could be really bad.”“What is much less certain is what this implies from a migration perspective,” Shukla elaborated.He said First Street’s prediction is not definitive. “What they’re saying is that if you average out the large number of scenarios where nothing major happens, flood-wise, and the small number of really major scenarios where the whole valley is devastated, that averages out to something like 28%,” Shukla said.While a major flood event that breaches the levee system could have severe consequences, if you live in Sacramento County, you are more likely to be impacted by rising temperatures and worsening air quality due to wildfires in the area on a day-to-day basis. Ultimately, Swain said, now is the time to think about how we will adapt to a warming world and the climate risks associated with that.”If we adapt, if we increase our defenses, if we sort of take that voluntary action now to get ahead of these risks, we could actually see a future where fewer people are harmed in these events than we saw historically, even as the number of them or the intensity of these events themselves increases,” Swain said. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
A new report says Sacramento County could lose more than a quarter of its population by 2055 due to increased climate risks. The data is from First Street, a climate risk prediction firm that provides data for sites like Zillow and Redfin.
The report points to catastrophic flooding, rising temperatures and worsening air quality as the primary climate risks in the Sacramento metro area.
“The Central Valley in California, both the San Joaquin Valley in the south and the Sacramento Valley to the north, are actually very flood-vulnerable places,” said University of California climate scientist Daniel Swain. “In some ways, they’re among the most flood-vulnerable places in all of the United States.”
That flood risk is why Sacramento has worked to build an extensive network of flood protection, like levees. But, as Swain pointed out, there are limits to any flood protection system, and we are likely to see larger flood events than we saw in the 20th century.
“The challenge is, is the climate changing in a way that is potentially outpacing some of those flood protection adaptations that we’ve seen,” Swain said.
These are factors First Street likely took into consideration when naming Sacramento County a top five climate abandonment county in the United States.
But does the county really stand to lose 28% of its population by 2055? S.F. Chronicle deputy data director Aseem Shukla looked into what the data really means.
Shukla said a catastrophic flood event is not the type of thing that will happen every five or 10 years, “but when it does happen, it could be really bad.”
“What is much less certain is what this implies from a migration perspective,” Shukla elaborated.
He said First Street’s prediction is not definitive.
“What they’re saying is that if you average out the large number of scenarios where nothing major happens, flood-wise, and the small number of really major scenarios where the whole valley is devastated, that averages out to something like 28%,” Shukla said.
While a major flood event that breaches the levee system could have severe consequences, if you live in Sacramento County, you are more likely to be impacted by rising temperatures and worsening air quality due to wildfires in the area on a day-to-day basis.
Ultimately, Swain said, now is the time to think about how we will adapt to a warming world and the climate risks associated with that.
“If we adapt, if we increase our defenses, if we sort of take that voluntary action now to get ahead of these risks, we could actually see a future where fewer people are harmed in these events than we saw historically, even as the number of them or the intensity of these events themselves increases,” Swain said.
See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel