Using climate data for resilient housing solutions
Published on: March 31, 2025
Overview
Climate risks are intensifying and evolving, with communities facing a range of hazards, including extreme weather events, rising sea levels, wildfires, and pollution. These threats pose significant risks to existing and future housing and disproportionately impact socially vulnerable residents. This brief provides an overview of key data sources to help housing agencies understand and assess these climate risks at various geographic levels, with a focus on the most vulnerable residents. It also explores how these data can inform a comprehensive housing strategy, from preservation to new development.
Florida homes flooded after a hurricane. Image credit: Bilanol
Cities can start mitigating the impacts of climate change on housing by assessing the risk of various hazards.
Some communities are more vulnerable to certain climate-related threats than others. Coastal areas may experience more floods, and dry regions may experience more droughts and wildfires. Housing agencies can use the National Risk Index Map, maintained by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to understand their local risk environment. Available for both counties and census tracts, the map provides a composite climate risk level for a community and compares it to national and state figures. This tool also provides individual risk levels for eighteen different hazards, from earthquakes to winter weather.
With an understanding of the broad risks affecting their communities, housing agencies can dig deeper with the Assessment Tool from Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation (CMRA). This resource goes beyond existing risk to provide long-term tract-level climate projections on extreme heat, flooding, and other common hazards. For example, agencies can gain insight into the current and projected number of days per year with heavy precipitation and those with maximum temperatures over 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Each source can help housing agencies understand their existing and future risk environment, which will affect the scope and scale of strategies needed to respond to climate-related hazards.
Data on pollution, air quality, and other environmental burdens can help identify the residents most vulnerable to climate change.
While climate-related threats and environmental hazards can affect entire communities, impacts are not distributed equally. Households of color, disabled residents, low-income households, and other socially vulnerable people are often at higher risk of displacement and negative health impacts from wildfires, floods, and extreme heat. Climate change poses acute risks to tenants as well, as these residents typically lack the ability to weatherize their homes. Tenants also have less standing to access federal disaster assistance, as long-term recovery and hazard mitigation funds overwhelmingly target homeowners. Socially vulnerable people are also disproportionately affected by environmental hazards like pollution, hazardous waste, and lead poisoning. Segregation, disinvestment, and other discriminatory practices have contributed to these disparities – a recent report from the Shriver Center on Poverty Law found that 70 percent of all hazardous waste sites are located within a mile of federally assisted housing.
As housing agencies consider the risks to housing in the broader community, they can also use tools like the EPA’s Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool to better understand inequities and help target investments in vulnerable neighborhoods. Available at the census tract level, this archived resource connects socioeconomic indicators with a suite of environmental burden indicators, with scores on topics ranging from wildfire risk to wastewater discharge. The tool also provides environmental justice indexes, which contextualize these variables and reveal the neighborhoods particularly affected by environmental hazards.
Agencies can take this analysis further with the U.S. Climate Vulnerability Index Map, which pulls together over 184 datasets to assess the relationship between a community’s socioeconomic and health conditions and its climate impacts. This “community baseline” data covers various inequities that shape resilience, from housing type to infectious disease levels. These variables can be compared to the climate impacts in a given community, such as weather events and social stressors, and summarized as an overall vulnerability percentile. After selecting a county or census tract, this resource can also generate detailed reports on the primary drivers of an area’s climate vulnerability.
Using climate data to target resources: Denver, CO
Denver’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency (CASR) uses climate vulnerability indexes to promote resiliency among the city’s most vulnerable communities. These indexes – which cover heat, air quality, drought, and severe weather – identify at-risk neighborhoods to better target investment through the Climate Protection Fund (CPF). With the help of this data, CASR aims to dedicate 50 percent of program funds to the communities most impacted by climate change. These investments could include supporting weatherization and home energy efficiency upgrades, subsidizing extreme weather insurance, and increasing access to electrified cooling systems. CASR is also coordinating with the city’s Department of Housing Stability (DHS) to ensure program funds reach these communities faster by allowing revenue to flow directly from the CPF to DHS projects.
Estimates of the economic impact of climate change can also inform local housing strategies.
Many data tools, including FEMA’s National Risk Index Map, include projections of the expected annual loss from climate-related threats. With this resource, housing agencies can understand the potential economic impact of droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events at both the county and census tract level. They can also analyze this information in relation to housing by utilizing the data on Building Expected Annual Loss (EAL) and the Building EAL rate.
However, agencies should be cautious in interpreting and applying this data in isolation. New research from the Urban Institute suggests that the methodology that FEMA uses to calculate loss may bias estimates towards wealthier communities with higher property values. Measuring loss in absolute terms can obscure the financial impacts on communities that have faced decades of disinvestment and devaluation. As FEMA works to update its methodology, housing agencies may find that internal estimates of replacement value, or the cost of partially or completely restoring a structure, may better reflect the unique climate-related risks facing these communities.
Partnerships with local agencies can expand data opportunities beyond risk assessment to proactive adaptation.
While housing agencies often lead development, preservation, and code enforcement at the local level, cross-sector collaboration can streamline policy interventions, making them more efficient and comprehensive.
Energy and environmental agencies are indispensable partners in this regard, as they typically have access to building-level utility data critical for tackling climate change at the source. If a benchmarkingThe practice of measuring and tracking building energy and water consumption, oftentimes with the intent to compare performance against similar buildings and identify areas for improvement. ordinance is in place, energy and environmental agencies can provide housing agencies with data from the Energy Star Portfolio Manager to track a building’s emissions, energy use, and water consumption. This data tool can help identify inefficient buildings for further investment and monitor the impact of policies over time.
Transportation and planning agencies are also key to a climate-conscious housing strategy, as they can help align development with sustainable transit opportunities and promote greater density and connectivity. For example, these agencies can highlight opportunities for infill housing and collaborate on changes to zoning codes that increase housing density in opportunity-rich, climate-resilient neighborhoods.
Data at the building level can help preserve existing housing by guiding efficiency upgrades and enhancing disaster resilience.
Beyond promoting emissions reductions, benchmarking and other building-level data can assist housing agencies in proposing housing rehabilitation codes that require climate-resistant standards and energy efficiency upgrades, like retrofits. However, agencies should assess whether these policies may have unintended consequences for tenants, such as higher rents or “renovictions” that remove tenants from their homes during minor upgrades. Pairing decarbonization efforts with tenant protections can ensure that sustainability does not displace households or create incentives for landlords to evict tenants.
Integrating multiple data sources into policymaking can also promote a more granular approach to disaster resilience. For example, agencies can use housing code violation data to identify areas more likely to require repairs or retrofits and then target compliance by risk level. Agencies can use socioeconomic data to tailor these policies even further and ensure that socially vulnerable communities receive additional resources. Creating or expanding access to climate-based financing – through grants, loans, and other forms of assistance – can help those facing financial barriers update their homes and remain in them. In cases where the data indicate that climate risks pose a significant threat, housing agencies can also develop proactive managed retreat strategies to protect both people and infrastructure from escalating climate impacts.
For new housing development, data-driven decision-making can ensure homes are built in areas with lower climate risks and designed for long-term resilience.
Housing agencies can use data to facilitate the placement of homes in areas with lower climate risks and prevent the construction of housing in areas that may expose people to environmental hazards. For example, agencies can use these data sources to ensure that multifamily housing is developed outside of floodplains, which would promote safety and equity for renters. These data sources can also help inform the materials used in construction, encouraging the use of climate-resilient options such as fire-resistant siding in areas at high risk of wildfires.
Tracking building emissions to improve efficiency: Honolulu, HI
Buildings account for roughly one third of greenhouse gas emissions in Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. In an effort to mitigate these impacts, the City of Honolulu’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) identified benchmarking as a policy that could help reduce energy consumption and ultimately reach net negative emissions by 2045. In 2022, City Ordinance 22-17 established the Better Buildings Benchmarking Program, administered by the city’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency. The program requires all large commercial and multifamily buildings to measure and report their annual electricity, gas, and water use through the Energy Star Portfolio Manager. While some buildings are not required to comply until mid-2025, the city has already created a dashboard to report partial data on the energy consumption and property characteristics of covered buildings. Going forward, Honolulu’s Office of Planning and Permitting will be key in maintaining this data by enforcing compliance with the ordinance. Tracking the efficiency of buildings is a critical first step in identifying opportunities to improve building performance and lower utility bills for residents.
Explore our Bridge page and watch our webinar to learn more about policies that cities can pursue to meet both housing and climate goals.