The Reliance School

950 Words / 4 min. Read‍

In December 2024, FEMA launched the Future Risk Index (FRI), showing projected economic losses due to climate change under multiple emissions scenarios.¹ The FRI was the first free, publicly available tool showing how much climate change is likely to cost communities in the United States.¹

In February 2025, FEMA removed the Future Risk Index from its website by order of the administration.² Data scientists preserved the maps and data sets on GitHub, but the data sets will no longer be updated, causing a massive loss of taxpayer-funded research.³

You can download the FRI from our public archive of climate data, but since it’s in tabular format, we've turned it into interactive maps to make this information more accessible.

Understanding the Data

The Future Risk Index accounts for five natural hazards - coastal flooding, drought, extreme heat (or heat waves), hurricanes, and wildfires - all of which are impacted by climate change.⁴ It adds a climate risk multiplier to data from the National Risk Index, which measures the economic impact of natural hazards (climate projections are sourced from CMIP6).⁵

It’s important to keep in mind that this data isn’t a direct representation of natural disaster risk; it’s a measure of projected annual losses (in dollars) for a given area. It also accounts for social vulnerability and community resilience:

The risk equation behind the Risk Index includes three components: a natural hazards component (Expected Annual Loss), a consequence enhancing component (Social Vulnerability), and a consequence reduction component (Community Resilience). The dataset supporting the natural hazards component provides estimates measured in 2022 U.S. dollars.

Using these three components, composite Risk Index values and hazard type Risk Index values are calculated for each community (county and Census tract) included in the Index. Risk Index values form an absolute basis for measuring Risk within the National Risk Index, and they are used to generate Risk Index percentiles and ratings across communities.⁶

From there, the NRI assigns a risk score representing the community’s average economic loss from natural hazards each year. Risk scores are equivalent to percentile rankings:

For example, if a given Census tract's Risk Index percentile for a hazard type is 84.32 then its Risk Index value is greater than 84.32% of all US Census tracts.⁷

Those scores are accompanied by a qualitative rating ranging from “Very Low” ($50,000 or less) to “Very High” ($1M or more) that compares a given community to others at the same level.⁷

In this post, we’ll be looking at risk values for the late-century, higher mean global temperature scenario, which is equivalent to SSP5-8.5 projections for 2070 through 2099.⁸

Extreme Heat

Extreme Heat is a climatological occurrence of abnormally high temperatures usually accompanied with higher-than-normal levels of humidity.⁴

Extreme temperatures are most prevalent in the southern half of America, and follow a clear trend of increasing below the 40th parallel⁹ (you can see this in our maps of NCA5 data for 1.5 °C and 2 °C of warming). However, heat waves (as defined by the NRI) are most prevalent in the central/southern Midwest and southwestern US.¹⁰

This is likely compounded by higher population densities and lower community resilience ratings for these regions.^11,12 Unfortunately the FRI data doesn't cover Florida, but we suspect risk ratings would be high in this area due to the combination of high heat and humidity.¹³

Drought

A Drought is a deficiency of precipitation over an extended period of time resulting in a water shortage.⁴

The annualized frequency of drought follows a clear pattern, increasing West of the 100th meridian in accordance with average rainfall.^9,14 However, NRI data projects some of the highest economic losses in central California and the Midwest, due in part to the impact on agriculture in those regions;¹⁵ these losses are reflected in the FRI as well. Severe drought risk is also projected for Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and the southern tip of Florida, which is compounded by low community resilience ratings for these regions.¹²

Wildfire

A Wildfire is an unplanned fire burning in natural or wildland areas, such as forest, shrub lands, grasslands, or prairies.⁴

Wildfires are most common in the western United States, largely due to the prevalence of hot, dry and windy weather conditions, as well as coniferous forests which provide a fuel source.^16,17 FRI data mirrors this trend, with the highest risk ratings projected for California, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, and the inland Pacific Northwest. However, risk is also high in Florida and parts of the Gulf Coast/Eastern Seaboard, which mirrors wildfire projections from NOAA.¹⁸

Hurricanes

A Hurricane is a tropical cyclone or localized, low-pressure weather system that has organized thunderstorms and maximum sustained winds of at least 74 miles per hour.⁴

The FRI data for hurricanes aligns more closely with our expectations for physical risk; ratings are highest along the Eastern Seaboard and decrease as we move further inland.¹⁹ The Gulf Coast is most at risk, as tropical storms are intensified by heat and humidity.²⁰

Coastal Flooding

Coastal Flooding is when water inundates or covers normally dry coastal land as a result of high or rising tides or storm surges.⁴

As with hurricanes, projections for coasting flooding aligns closely with physical risk. The greatest annualized frequencies are found in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest, which is amplified by higher building values and population densities in those regions.¹⁴ New York, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington are projected to experience some of the highest losses.

Overall Risk

While the FRI doesn’t provide a value for overall risk, we’ve created a map using an average of all 5 risk factors. While this is helpful for seeing how different regions compare, keep in mind that the previous data sets don’t cover all counties. As such, values for heat, drought and wildfire will be more heavily weighted than hurricanes and coastal flooding.

With those caveats, Florida, New Mexico, and California are projected to experience the highest economic losses. New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Minnesota, and Alaska are also facing higher losses than most states.

The Social Vulnerability Index is an important component of the FRI; we’ve mapped that here. If you're interested in exploring more factors, you can find over 50 maps of climate risk in our free collection.

Footnotes & References

1. FEMA Removed Future Risk Index (Harvard Law School)
2. Trump’s ‘climate’ purge deleted a new extreme weather risk tool. (Oliver Milman, Andrew Witherspoon, The Guardian)
3. Trump removed an online tool that predicts your climate risk. Rogue data scientists rebuilt it (Kristin Toussaint, Fast Company)
4. Future Risk Index Technical Documentation (FEMA)
5. CMIP6: the next generation of climate models explained (Zeke Hausfather, Carbon Brief)
6. Determining Risk (FEMA)
7. Understanding Scores and Ratings (FEMA)
8. How ‘Shared Socioeconomic Pathways’ explore future climate change (Zeke Hausfather, Carbon Brief)
9. New maps of annual average temperature and precipitation from the U.S. Climate Normals (Rebecca Lindsey, Michael Palecki, Climate.gov)
10. Heat Wave (FEMA)
11. US population map (Wikipedia)
12. Community Resilience (FEMA)
13. Humidity in Florida (David Zierden, Emily Powell, The Florida Climate Center)
14. National Risk Index Technical Documentation (FEMA)
15. Drought (FEMA)
16. Understand Risk (Wildfire Risk to Communities)
17. Wildfire Risk to Homes, Roads, and Power Lines (Climate Central)
18. Risk of very large fires could increase sixfold by mid-century in the US (Caitlyn Kennedy, Renaud Barbero, Climate.gov)
19. Hurricane (FEMA)
20. How does the ocean affect hurricanes? (NOAA)