The real estate website Zillow has recently come up with a depressing new feature. You might be familiar with Zillow; it estimates the current value of a house based on recent sales of comparable houses in the same area, using public sources of information. Type in your address and Zillow gives you an estimate—or rather a “Zestimate”—of what your home might currently sell for. It’s easy (don’t ask me how I know this) to waste an unconscionable amount of time typing in first your own address, then addresses of places you’ve lived or might someday like to live, then the addresses of your friends, family members, and…well, you get the idea.
Now the site has come up with an equally fascinating, but much less fun, way to spend your time. It has published research—relying heavily on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—showing how many of us would lose our homes if sea levels rise as predicted. Estimates vary with different models, but for the purposes of this exercise, that’s 6 feet by the year 2100. Assuming we didn’t build any more houses on the coast between now and then, the 6-foot rise would flood 1.87 million homes, worth a total of $882 billion. About half of those homes are in Florida.
You can see a list by state here of the number of homes that would be underwater, and what percentage of each state’s homes that number represents, along with maps of several coastal cities showing the areas that would be most affected.
“If sea levels rise as much as climate scientists predict by the year 2100, almost 300 US cities would lose at least half their homes, and 36 US cities would be completely lost,” says Zillow’s report. It also notes that the homes we’d lose—being in desirable coastal areas—are roughly 58% more expensive than the average American home.
Several interactive tools already exist to estimate the effects of sea level rise on coastal areas; NOAA’s Digital Coast is one. Zillow used NOAA data and maps in making its predictions.
Janice Kaspersen
Janice Kaspersen is the former editor of Erosion Control and Stormwater magazines.