Our research delivers data-driven insights to decision-makers as governments and communities confront the reality of a rapidly changing climate. A cross-cutting theme is a focus on equity to protect and empower populations most vulnerable to climate change impacts.
Local News Reporting and Mass Attitudes on Infrastructure Investment (2024 article in Political Behavior)
Investing in basic infrastructure is vital for communities’ climate resilience, but the public is often unaware of the need and the consequences of infrastructure deterioration. This study used evidence from a national survey experiment to show that content-rich local news reporting increases public support for preventive spending and willingness to hold local leaders accountable for failing to invest in prevention. Maintaining climate-resilient physical infrastructure is tied to maintaining the civic infrastructure of local news.
People or Property Legal Contradictions, Climate Resettlement, and the View from Shifting Ground (2023 book)
This book examines the use of relocation and resettlement processes in the U.S. as a means of responding to climate change. It argues that certain contradictions in property law diminish the usefulness of relocation as a successful strategy.
Buyouts with Rentbacks: A policy Proposal for Managing Coastal Retreat (2022 article in Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences)
This article introduces an innovation in buyout policy that would allow residents to remain in their homes as renters after being bought out. The researchers develop the basic structure of such a policy, recommend funding mechanisms, and discuss the policy’s potential for improving outcomes in the case of necessary migration away from coastal areas. This research was led by Megan Mullin during her transition from Duke University to the Luskin Center for Innovation.
When Rebuilding No Longer Means Recovery: The Stress of Staying Put after Hurricane Sandy (2021 article in Climatic Change)
This article presents data from individuals who opted either to rebuild or relocate with the help of a voluntary home buyout after Hurricane Sandy. Findings show those who lived in buyout-eligible areas and relocated were significantly less likely to report worsened stress than those who rebuilt in place.
Evaluating the efficacy and equity of environmental stopgap measures (2020 article in Nature Sustainability)
This paper examines examples of “stopgap measures” from wildfire risk management, hydrochlorofluorocarbon regulation and Colorado River water management, and it introduces an analytical framework to assess stopgaps.
Sociology and the climate crisis (2020 article in Annual Review of Sociology)
This article reviews research on trends brought on by the climate crisis including 1) compounding and cumulative disasters, infrastructure breakdown, and adaptation, 2) intensifying migration and shifting patterns of settlement, and 3) transformations in consumption, labor, and energy.
Is Coastal Adaptation a Public Good? The Financing Implications of Good Characteristics in Coastal Adaptation (2020 article in Journal of Environmental Planning and Management)
The researchers argue that good characteristics of coastal adaptation – subtractability, excludability, heterogeneity, joint production, and capital intensity – create political opportunities for the application of financing mechanisms such as property taxes, district-level finance, and bonds. Exploring the good characteristics of an adaptation strategy can help communities identify an appropriate and feasible mechanism for financing it. This research was led by Megan Mullin during her transition from Duke University to the Luskin Center for Innovation.
How maps make time: Temporal conflicts of life in the flood zone (2019 article in Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action)
This article examines temporal conflicts (remapping, rezoning, and “at risk” designations) through a case of disputed risk mapping in New York City. While maps are key to rendering the risks of climate change vivid and local, their use as technologies of governing adaptation produces its own contested effects.
Paying to Save the Beach: Effects of Local Finance Decisions on Coastal Management (2018 article in Climate Change)
This study evaluates how project costs affect coastline management over the long term. Results from modeling cost distributions demonstrate that delineating tax rates to account for unequal benefits of local public goods could facilitate local investment in climate change adaptation. This research was led by Megan Mullin during her transition from Duke University to the Luskin Center for Innovation.
Researchers: Andrew Trexler and Megan Mullin
Funder: Duke University
Investing in basic infrastructure is vital for communities’ climate resilience, but the public is often unaware of the need for investment and the consequences of infrastructure deterioration. This study used evidence from a national survey experiment to show that content-rich local news reporting increases public support for preventive spending and willingness to hold local leaders accountable for failing to invest in prevention. Maintaining a climate-resilient physical infrastructure is tied to maintaining the civic infrastructure of local news.
Researchers: Megan Mullin and Patrick J Egan
This study highlights three recent developments that could advance climate policy, despite partisan politics: 1) partisan cohesion and Democratic initiative, 2) clean-energy expansion in Republican states, and 3) partisan distribution of climate impacts.
Researchers: Ladd Keith, C.J. Gabbe, and Erika Schmidt
Funder: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
This study examined five large, climatically-diverse US cities to better understand urban heat governance with a focus on the field of urban planning. The researchers found that aspects of heat planning occur across a variety of municipal plans but only a small number of strategies were explicitly framed in terms of heat, suggesting an opportunity to better connect heat with other policy goals.
Researcher: Liz Koslov
The term agnostic adaptation refers to actions that address climate change’s effects without acknowledging its existence or human causes. This article explores how action and silence coexist and even serve to reinforce each other.
The following research was led by Megan Mullin as she transitioned her role as a professor at Duke University to LCI’s faculty director.
Researchers: Andrew G. Keeler, Megan Mullin, Dylan E. McNamara & Martin D. Smith
This article introduces an innovation in buyout policy that would allow residents to remain in their homes as renters after being bought out. The researchers develop the basic structure of such a policy, recommend funding mechanisms, and discuss the policy’s potential for improving outcomes in the case of necessary migration away from coastal areas.
Researcher: Megan Mullin
This article speaks to the need to understand and surmount political hurdles to adapt to climate change.
Researchers: Emily V. Bell, Amanda Fencl, Megan Mullin
This research examined participation by water service providers in collaborative planning forums. Researchers find: participation in regional water planning is associated with perceived risk to water supply from changing climatic conditions, but not with perceived risk from changing patterns of demand.
Researchers: Sierra C. Woodruff, Megan Mullin & Malini Roy
The researchers argue that good characteristics of coastal adaptation – subtractability, excludability, heterogeneity, joint production, and capital intensity – create political opportunities for the application of financing mechanisms such as property taxes, district-level finance, and bonds. Exploring the good characteristics of an adaptation strategy can help communities identify an appropriate and feasible mechanism for financing it.
Researcher: Megan Mullin
This discussion of the local political economy of drinking water provision reveals the constraints on community water systems that affect their performance when confronting drought hazards. Fragmentation in responsibility for drinking water contributes to disparities in drought vulnerability, preparation, and response across households and across communities.
Researchers: Megan Mullin, Martin D. Smith & Dylan E. McNamara
This study evaluates how project costs affect coastline management over the long term. Results from modeling cost distributions demonstrate that delineating tax rates to account for unequal benefits of local public goods could facilitate local investment in climate change adaptation.
Authors: Alessandra Jerolleman, Elizabeth Marino, Nathan Jessee, Liz Koslov, Chantel Comardelle, Melissa Villarreal, Daniel de Vries, Simon Manda
This book examines the use of relocation and resettlement processes in the U.S. as a means of responding to climate change. It argues that certain contradictions in property law diminish the usefulness of relocation as a successful strategy.
Researchers: Liz Koslov, Alexis Merdjanoff, Elana Sulakshana, Eric Klinenberg
This article presents data from individuals who opted either to rebuild or relocate with the help of a voluntary home buyout after Hurricane Sandy. Findings show those who lived in buyout-eligible areas and relocated were significantly less likely to report worsened stress than those who rebuilt in place.
Author: Kian Goh
Cities around the world are formulating plans to respond to climate change and adapt to its impact. Often, marginalized urban residents resist these plans, offering “counterplans” to protest unjust and exclusionary actions. In this book, Kian Goh examines climate change response strategies in three cities—New York, Jakarta, and Rotterdam—and the mobilization of community groups to fight the perceived injustices and oversights of these plans.
Researchers: Eric Klinenberg, Malcolm Araos, Liz Koslov
This article reviews research on trends brought on by the climate crisis: (a) compounding and cumulative disasters, infrastructure breakdown, and adaptation; (b) intensifying migration and shifting patterns of settlement; and (c) transformations in consumption, labor, and energy.
UCLA Researchers: Holly Jean Buck, Peter Kareiva, Liz Koslov, Will Krantz, Edward A. Parson
This paper examines examples of ‘stopgap measures’ from wildfire risk management, hydrochlorofluorocarbon regulation and Colorado River water management and introduces an analytical framework to assess stopgaps.
Researcher: Liz Koslov
This article examines temporal conflicts (remapping, rezoning, and “at risk” designations) through a case of disputed risk mapping in New York City. While maps are key to rendering the risks of climate change vivid and local, their use as technologies of governing adaptation produces its own contested effects.