The participation of individuals contributes significantly to the success of sea level rise adaptation. This study therefore addresses what influences people’s likelihood of relocating away from low-lying areas in response to rising sea levels. The analysis was based on a survey conducted in the City of Panama Beach in Florida (USA). Survey items relate to people’s risk perception, hazard experience, threat appraisal, and coping appraisal, whose theoretical background is Protection Motivation Theory. Descriptive and correlation analysis was first performed to highlight critical factors which were then examined by a multinomial Logit model. Results show that sea level rise awareness is the major explanatory variable. Coping appraisal is qualitatively viewed as a strong predictor for action, while threat appraisal is statistically significant in driving relocation intention. These factors should be integrated in current risk communication regarding sea level rise.

This study aims to investigate the effects of built environment factors on pedestrian crash frequency during the morning, noon-afternoon, night, and during peak hours. To accomplish this, micro-crash frequency models were developed based on the 2008–2011 Miami-Dade County pedestrian collision records collected from the Florida Signal Four Analytics (FSFA) dataset. Land uses evaluated in this study include educational, medical, recreational, commercial, residential, religious, and food establishment facilities. The negative binomial (NB) regression and zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regression were employed to analyze the impacts of traffic volume, road design, and proportion of surrounding land use on road segments during different study periods. The results indicate that built environment factors are associated with different number of pedestrian collisions depending on the time of day/night. For example, pedestrian collisions associated with educational facilities are more frequent except after dark. Residential land use contributes to a significant and consistent increase in pedestrian collisions; while food establishment facilities land use shows an increase in pedestrian collisions during the noon/afternoon and night. As such, the specific and detailed findings in this study can help safety authorities carry out targeted transportation safety management and planning strategies to protect pedestrians in Miami-Dade County.

Sea-level rise (SLR) will magnify the impacts of storm surge; the resulting severe flooding and inundation can cause huge damage to coastal communities. Community leaders are considering implementing adaptation strategies, typically hard engineering projects, to protect coastal assets and resources. It is important to understand the costs and benefits of the proposed project before any decision is made. To mitigate the flooding impact of joint effects of storm surge and SLR, building levee segments is chosen to be a corresponding adaptation strategy to protect the real estate assets in the study area—the City of Miami, FL, USA. This paper uses the classic Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) to assess the cost efficiency and proposes corresponding improvements in the benefit estimation, by estimating the avoided damages of implementing levee projects. Results show that the city will benefit from implementing levee projects along the Miami River in both a one-time 10 year storm event with SLR and cumulative long-term damage scenarios. This study also suggests that conducting CBA is a critical process before making coastal adaptation planning investment. A more meaningful result of cost effectiveness is estimated by accounting for the appreciation and time value. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to verify how the choice of discount rate influences the result. Uncertain factors including the rate of SLR, storm intensification, land use changes, and real estate appreciation are further analyzed.