Migration due to floodplain buyouts mimics general post-disaster migration patterns

Abstract

Property buyout programs, widely utilized by the US government to mitigate flood vulnerability, pose uncertain social and economic impacts. Prior studies have analyzed the outcomes of buyout participants alone or in comparison with non-movers. We propose a refined approach to better isolate the impacts of participation in buyout program by comparing participants to non-participants that also relocated in the wake of the storm event. Our study compares 267 buyout program participants and 948 non-buyout movers in Harris County, Texas, after Hurricane Harvey. We find that buyout participants tended to move to similar areas as non-buyout movers. This finding suggests that the HMGP program is as successful as the private market at providing options for relocation post-disaster while achieving additional mitigation benefits for the city at large. Our findings suggest a role for increasing benefits of the buyout programs as a means of decreasing program attrition.