Glossary

Sea Level Rise Exposure

A property's vulnerability to permanent or recurrent flooding from rising ocean and tidal water levels over a multi-decade horizon, distinct from storm-driven flood risk, and increasingly assessed through long-range projection modeling rather than historical flood data.

Sea level rise exposure is a chronic physical climate risk that unfolds over years and decades rather than in a single event, making it particularly relevant to long-hold institutional investors, ground lease structures, and coastal development underwriting, where an asset's terminal value decades out may be affected by inundation projections that are immaterial to a near-term hold. Assessment typically layers elevation data against projected sea level rise scenarios (often tied to global emissions pathways) and local subsidence rates, since land in many coastal markets is simultaneously sinking as seas rise, compounding exposure faster than global averages would suggest. Because current FEMA flood maps are not forward-looking, sea level rise exposure is one of the primary reasons investors and lenders increasingly supplement regulatory flood zone designations with private, projection-based climate risk data for coastal acquisitions and ground-up coastal development.