From Hazard Mitigation to Climate Adaptation: A Review of Home Buyout Program Literature

With the onset of climate change resulting in more frequent hazard events and coastal inundation, communities are considering buyouts as a tool for climate adaptation. Despite a growing body of research, there has never been a systematic review of the literature on buyout programs, although our ability to implement buyouts successfully relies on a thorough understanding of buyout policy, design, implementation, and impacts. In this systematic literature review of voluntary buyouts in the United States, we distill key learnings, identify remaining gaps, present avenues for future research, and make policy recommendations. We find that the buyout literature is nascent, but coalesces around the topics of buyout experience, buyout practice and implementation, housing policy, flood reduction, and justice and equity. Recommendations for future research include an increased emphasis on theory, the contexts in which buyouts occur, longitudinal studies, and more explicit recognition of researcher and disciplinary bias.