Summary of Future Climate and Environmental Changes in Orange County, Florida
This report uses best-available information to understand potential environmental changes in Orange County through mid-century, including several tools and datasets developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For future temperature and precipitation projections, the report draws on the EPA’s Locating and Selecting Scenarios Online (LASSO) tool, which provides climate projections downscaled to match local planning decisions. The report uses EPA’s Integrated Climate and Land Use Scenarios (ICLUS) tool to evaluate future land use changes and assesses changes in climate-driven mortality rates using EPA’s Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (BenMAP) tool and extreme heat projections from the LASSO tool. Finally, the report uses EPA’s Sea-level-rise and Assessment Tool (SEATool) to understand sea level rise projections in Florida and assess the potential for climate driven migration to impact Orange County. The assessments of future land use change, excess mortality, and climate-driven migration use a common set of population growth projections from the Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR).