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.
Californians’ Concern About Climate Change Hazards (2025 policy brief)
Luskin California Poll Policy Brief
This policy brief draws on the 2025 Luskin California Poll to examine which climate change hazards most concern Californians and their expectations for government action to reduce harm.
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.
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.
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.