Equity dimensions of future vulnerabilities to climate hazards: Long-term spatial population projections for New York City consistent with Shared Socioeconomic Pathways
5 affiliations
- 1City University of New York (CUNY) Institute for Demographic Research, City University of New York, New York, NY 10010
- 2Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY), New York, NY 10010
- 3Department of Environmental, Occupational, and Geospatial Health Sciences, City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, New York, NY 10027
- 4Asian Demographic Research Institute, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
- 5Population Council, New York, NY 10017
Abstract
Projections of future population are important for a myriad of reasons. Large cities, states, and countries routinely produce near- and mid-range population projections. In the context of climate change, the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) framework is used at global and national scales to project long-term population to inform future emissions scenarios and understand future climate-related exposures and impacts. Much less consideration has been given to long-term projections at smaller scales, even though climate impacts are place based and cities now host most of the world’s population. Cities and their metropolitan regions are complex, heterogeneous in terms of population, environmental, and built features. Thus, using global or national-scale approaches overlooks important aspects of urban futures. Cities are diverse, fluid population centers home to migrants, with employment opportunities yet substantial inequality. These quintessential city-centric features are ignored in global/national-scale population projection methods, including long-term ones consistent with the SSPs. Leveraging state-level SSP-based projections, here we extend that approach for New York City, currently home to 8.8 million persons. Combining multistate and multiregional demographic projection and spatial downscaling models, we project county-level population by racial/ethnic groups and age–sex to 2100 and downscale to 100 m. Such projections allow for an equity lens to inform assessments of future vulnerabilities to climate hazards. Four of the five SSPs project that the population of New York City will be smaller and much older at the end of the century, though these futures are dependent on demographic assumptions about fertility and especially migration.
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BibTeX
@article{balk2026equity,
title = {{Equity dimensions of future vulnerabilities to climate hazards: Long-term spatial population projections for New York City consistent with Shared Socioeconomic Pathways}},
author = {Deborah Balk and Jenna F. Tipaldo and Leiwen Jiang and Hamidreza Zoraghein},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1073/pnas.2407568122},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2407568122},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Equity dimensions of future vulnerabilities to climate hazards: Long-term spatial population projections for New York City consistent with Shared Socioeconomic Pathways
AU - Deborah Balk
AU - Jenna F. Tipaldo
AU - Leiwen Jiang
AU - Hamidreza Zoraghein
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/26
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2407568122
UR - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2407568122
AB - Projections of future population are important for a myriad of reasons. Large cities, states, and countries routinely produce near- and mid-range population projections. In the context of climate change, the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) framework is used at global and national scales to project long-term population to inform future emissions scenarios and understand future climate-related exposures and impacts. Much less consideration has been given to long-term projections at smaller scales, even though climate impacts are place based and cities now host most of the world’s population. Cities and their metropolitan regions are complex, heterogeneous in terms of population, environmental, and built features. Thus, using global or national-scale approaches overlooks important aspects of urban futures. Cities are diverse, fluid population centers home to migrants, with employment opportunities yet substantial inequality. These quintessential city-centric features are ignored in global/national-scale population projection methods, including long-term ones consistent with the SSPs. Leveraging state-level SSP-based projections, here we extend that approach for New York City, currently home to 8.8 million persons. Combining multistate and multiregional demographic projection and spatial downscaling models, we project county-level population by racial/ethnic groups and age–sex to 2100 and downscale to 100 m. Such projections allow for an equity lens to inform assessments of future vulnerabilities to climate hazards. Four of the five SSPs project that the population of New York City will be smaller and much older at the end of the century, though these futures are dependent on demographic assumptions about fertility and especially migration.
SN - 0027-8424
SN - 1091-6490
ER -