Black communities in the United States will see the flood risk in their neighbourhoods climb at least 20% over the next 30 years, experts are predicting.
Scientists in the UK and US issued the warning after modelling new flood risk maps that detail the impact of flooding on a street-by-street basis across the US.
“They cover floods of many different sizes, from nuisance flooding that may occur every few years to once-in-a-millennium disasters,” the scientists explain in an article for The Conversation.
Led by the University of Bristol in the UK, the study, published in the journal Nature, looks at how flooding will impact different communities unequally.
Flooding already costs the US more than $32 billion a year on average in losses, the scientists say. This is projected to hit more than $40 billion by 2050.
Today, it’s impoverished white communities who are most at risk from flooding in low-lying areas at risk from heavy rainfall, the study finds.
These communities are around America’s coasts in the Northwest, Northeast and Gulf of Mexico, and in Appalachia, a northeast region of the US.