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According to the presenter, only a small percentage of Rockaway residents have begun to take adaptation actions either at the individual or community scale. The obstacles include; a lack of understanding among residents regarding future flood risks, available adaptation options and their costs and benefits, and constrained resources.
Most of the discussion focused around the need for awareness raising, suggesting that if residents had better information, they may make more informed decisions. Interestingly, the presenter revealed that 80% of homeowners rebuilt their homes after Sandy in the same way they were before. Of course, this offers no additional resiliency benefits should a Sandy-scale storm, or worse, sweep through the region again. Why would they do this?
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Interestingly, while there was a lot of discussion about costs of adaptation options, there was little discussion of how to finance them. While FEMA does provide post-disaster relief, homeowners have complained that it can take years for funding to be distributed and that funding won’t be reimbursed for costs already spent on construction. In other words, you can’t raise your home post-disaster and then be reimbursed for it after the fact. This doesn’t incentivise homeowners to build back better.
I took two things away from this presentation. One, that individuals’ decision-making is likely strongly dictated by finances, and two, that adaptation options must reflect the present reality. Proposing adaptation actions in regions where the vast majority of people don’t have the resources to implement them with limited government resources to support them, may not be useful or equitable. Adaptation is urgently required at all scales, yet not all technically viable adaptation solutions will work in every context.