Dr. Nadia Seeteram studies climate risk, housing, and migration as an adaptation scientist. New York's first proactive voluntary relocation program is being launched by her as Director of Buyouts at the Division of Housing and Community Renewal. In her postdoctoral research fellowship at Columbia University's Climate School, she examined multi-sectoral tensions that prevent scalable climate risk reduction solutions in U.S. housing markets. She earned her Ph.D. in Earth Systems Science from FIU. Her dissertation examined the long-term and dynamic effects of sea-level rise on coastal communities and implications for climate-related migration. This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant and the Volo Foundation. She recently completed a Climate Security fellowship with the Council of Strategic Risks at the Center for Climate and Security and has researched at the EPA and the New York State Governor's Office of Storm Recovery.
Climate risks are increasing across the United States, motivating long-term planning for more resilient housing. Climate-fueled disasters are shifting resident preferences towards safer housing, yet climate adaptation plans rarely include a housing-specific focus. This talk will examine the challenges associated with addressing climate impacts on housing across coastal communities within the U.S. Based on 64 in-depth semi-structured interviews with a wide range of stakeholders, I will provide an overview both current and proposed climate-housing risk reduction solutions, and the opportunities and barriers for implementing them. The assessment reveals that climate risk reduction actions are small-scale, where occurring, but experts prefer solutions that would increase impact such as legal mandates, financial solutions, and managed retreat. However, the analysis revealed significant multi-sectoral tensions that currently impede the scalability of solutions nationwide, including issues related to climate risk information and building code efficacy, as well as tensions in maintaining affordability and increasing equity. This seminar will further explore the challenges and potential solutions across the climate risk, housing, and migration nexus to foster alignment across sectors, scale effective solutions, and ensure equitable housing outcomes for coastal communities.