Flooding of Coastal Industrial Communities in the U.S.

Originally published: August 26, 2024

As the climate crisis worsens, the United States is experiencing more frequent and intense flood events, posing a significant threat to coastal communities and industrial facilities. Rising sea levels, more frequent extreme weather events, and aging infrastructure have created a perfect storm of risk, particularly for coastal industrial communities. When floodwaters rise, they not only damage homes and businesses but also put toxic industrial facilities at risk of flooding, potentially unleashing harmful chemicals into the environment. This story map explores the alarming trend of flooding at toxic industrial facilities in the US, highlighting the devastating impacts on communities, the environment, and public health. To optimize your experience on mobile devices, use "landscape" mode and click to expand and zoom in on the embedded maps.

Flooded Polluters: A Growing Nationwide Challenge

The United States is home to a vast network of industrial facilities that handle, store, or produce hazardous substances. These facilities, often located in close proximity to socially marginalized residential areas and vulnerable ecosystems, pose significant risks to human health, the environment, and local economies. Exposure to these toxic substances can lead to a range of acute and chronic health problems, including respiratory issues, cancer, neurological disorders, and reproductive harm. Moreover, the economic and social costs of industrial accidents and chemical releases can be devastating, impacting property values, disrupting livelihoods, and eroding community trust.

Each point on the following map represents a large industrial facility within the Contiguous United States (CONUS) that reported to the  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory  in 2022. Click on any point plotted on the map to find out more about each facility, where they are situated, and the industries they are engaged in. Or, type an address into the search bar (or magnifying glass) on the top lefthand corner of this map to check its proximity to industrial facilities.

While the negative effects and unequal distribution of exposures to toxic industrial pollution and chemicals are well-documented, the ways in which climate change-related events such as worsening floods can exacerbate the harmful impacts generated by industrial polluters on local communities, environments, and economies have received much less attention. To discern the extent to which active toxic industrial facilities across the CONUS will be impacted by increasing flood impacts generated by the worsening climate crisis, we utilize  predictive future flood risk data  from  First Street Foundation (FSF) . FSF’s proprietary future flood risk data uses advanced climate models and land-use data to produce predictive address-level data that reflects a property’s cumulative likelihood of flooding at least once by 2050 (FSF n.d.). FSF’s future flood risk data is provided through Flood Factor (FF) scores—integer values that range from 1 to 10—with 1 indicating minimal risk and 10 indicating extreme risk. In the following slider map, industrial facilities represented by red icons represent those with elevated future flood risks (coded by FSF as those with FF scores of 3 and higher), or facilities with at least a six to twelve percent chance of flooding by the year 2050. Move the slider towards the left to check out which toxic industrial facilities across the CONUS have elevated future flood risks.

The unequal distribution of toxic industrial facilities across the CONUS is also reflected amongst the subset of facilities that are predicted to have elevated future flood risks. The following heat map illustrates where large industrial facilities with elevated flood risks are most clustered across the CONUS, with areas overlaid with orange and red blocks representing significant concentrations of flood-prone industrial facilities.

The heat map indicates that TRI facilities with elevated flood risk cluster in a few major metropolitan areas along the nation’s perimeter, where major population centers locate along major waterways. In the west, this pattern prominently includes the greater Los Angeles area; in the Midwest, the greater Chicago area; in the South, the greater Houston area; and, in the Northeast, the greater New York region. These are areas where the challenge of neighborhood contamination triggered by flood impacts on industrial facilities move from specific sites to larger scales of concern.

Indeed, a deeper investigation of our data validates the findings generated from the heat map. In ranking CONUS counties by their number of flood-prone facilities and average flood factors, we find that Harris County, Texas—the largest county in terms of land mass and population density within the Greater Houston region—emerges as the one with the greatest concentration of flood-prone industrial facilities.

Houston in the Cross-Hairs

The Greater Houston area prides itself as being a major hub for the petrochemical industry and hosts a sprawling network of refineries, chemical plants, and other industrial facilities. This concentration of industry has brought jobs and economic growth to the region, but it has also created significant environmental and health risks. The Houston Ship Channel, a 52-mile waterway connecting the Port of Houston to the Gulf of Mexico, is lined with hundreds of industrial facilities, many of which handle hazardous substances. This dense concentration of industrial activity, combined with the region's vulnerability to flooding, makes Houston a prime example of the growing threat posed by climate change to industrial communities. Click on any points plotted on the map to find out more about each facility, where they are situated, and the industries they are engaged in. Or, type an address into the search bar (or magnifying glass) on the top lefthand corner of this map to check its proximity to industrial facilities.

In the following slider map, industrial facilities in Greater Houston visualized by red icons represent those with elevated future flood risks (coded by FSF as those with FF scores of 3 and higher), or facilities with at least a six to twelve percent chance of flooding by the year 2050.

The extensive future flood risk of large industrial facilities within the Greater Houston region is starkly evident in the map above, where red icons (representing elevated flood risk) far outnumber black icons. Of the 532 active facilities located within the nine-county region, roughly 70% face elevated future flood risks. FSF's predictive data further reveals an average Flood Factor (FF) of 4.4 for all facilities in the region, with an even higher average of 6.0 for those deemed flood-prone. This high concentration of large toxic industrial facilities along vulnerable coastal shorelines, such as the Houston Ship Channel and Sabine Lake, significantly increases residents' risk of exposure to compounding toxic industrial hazards during storm and heavy rainfall events. As catastrophes like Hurricane Harvey have tragically demonstrated, the combined effects of industrial accidents and flooding can be devastating for affected communities, environments, and economies.