As governments race to implement new climate adaptation policies that prepare for more frequent flooding, they must seek policies that are effective for all communities and uphold climate justice. This requires evaluating policies not only on their overall effectiveness but also on whether their benefits are felt across all communities. We illustrate the importance of considering such disparities for flood adaptation using the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program Community Rating System and its dataset of $\sim$2.5 million flood insurance claims. We use ${\rm C{\scriptsize AUSAL}F{\scriptsize LOW}}$, a causal inference method based on deep generative models, to estimate the treatment effect of flood adaptation interventions based on a community's income, diversity, population, flood risk, educational attainment, and precipitation. We find that the program saves communities \$5,000--15,000 per household. However, these savings are not evenly spread across communities. For example, for low-income communities savings sharply decline as flood-risk increases in contrast to their high-income counterparts with all else equal. Even among low-income communities, there is a gap in savings between predominantly white and non-white communities: savings of predominantly white communities can be higher by more than \$6000 per household. As communities worldwide ramp up efforts to reduce losses inflicted by floods, simply prescribing a series flood adaptation measures is not enough. Programs must provide communities with the necessary technical and economic support to compensate for historical patterns of disenfranchisement, racism, and inequality. Future flood adaptation efforts should go beyond reducing losses overall and aim to close existing gaps to equitably support communities in the race for climate adaptation.

翻译：随着各国政府竞相实施应对更频繁洪水的新气候适应政策，它们必须寻求对所有社区有效且维护气候正义的政策。这要求不仅评估政策的整体有效性，还要评估其效益是否惠及所有社区。我们利用FEMA国家洪水保险计划社区评级系统及其约250万份洪水保险索赔数据集，说明了在洪水适应中考虑此类差异的重要性。我们采用基于深度生成模型的因果推断方法${\rm C{\scriptsize AUSAL}F{\scriptsize LOW}}$，根据社区的收入、多样性、人口、洪水风险、教育程度和降水量来估计洪水适应干预措施的处理效应。我们发现，该计划为每个社区家庭节省了5000至15000美元。然而，这些节省并非均匀分布在社区之间。例如，对于低收入社区，随着洪水风险增加，节省金额急剧下降，而相比之下，高收入社区在其他条件相同的情况下则不然。即使在低收入社区中，以白人为主的社区和非白人社区之间也存在节省差距：以白人为主的社区的节省金额可能高出6000多美元。随着全球各地社区加大努力以减少洪水造成的损失，仅仅规定一系列洪水适应措施是不够的。计划必须为社区提供必要的技术和经济支持，以弥补历史上的剥夺、种族主义和不平等模式。未来的洪水适应工作应超越总体减少损失，致力于缩小现有差距，以公平地支持社区参与气候适应的竞赛。