---
title: managed retreat leaves land behind
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/managed-retreat-leaves-land-behind
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/managed-retreat-leaves-land-behind.md
subtitle: "when a building cannot be made safe, retreat moves the exposure. the lot it leaves can become floodplain, and someone has to keep it working"
category: natural-capital
---

# managed retreat leaves land behind

*when a building cannot be made safe, retreat moves the exposure. the lot it leaves can become floodplain, and someone has to keep it working*

**What is managed retreat?** Managed retreat is the planned move of homes, roads and people away from places a hazard keeps reaching, often through voluntary buyouts of flood-prone homes in the United States. In the risk equation it changes exposure, not the hazard and not the building. The land a buyout leaves behind stays, and someone has to keep it.

Before it is a land question, managed retreat is a family selling the house they meant to stay in, a street losing the neighbors who made it a street, and a town giving up homes it will not see rebuilt. Nobody should be told to leave, and this post does not.

What the post is about is the ground that stays. A floodplain, a wetland or a river's edge shapes how deep the water gets for every building near it, whether or not anyone pays for it. The people who depend on that ground can pay for its keeping through [**ensurance**](/manual/ensurance?from=guide), which is not the floodplain, does not buy a house and does not harden a roof.

Why the insurance industry's mitigation is climate policy's adaptation is in [mitigation means two different things](/guide/mitigation-means-two-different-things?from=guide).

## retreat is a human decision first

The hardship is real, and it comes before any talk of land. A buyout ends a home, not just a mortgage. For many households, neither staying nor going is a good choice.

The wait is hard too. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found in 2019, from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) data on more than 43,000 properties, that "it takes a median of more than 5 years between a flood and the completion of a FEMA-funded buyout project": 5.2 years at the median.

Who gets a buyout is uneven as well. Mach and colleagues, in *Science Advances* in 2019, found that local governments in richer, more populous counties were more likely to run buyouts, and that within those counties the bought-out properties were concentrated in areas of greater social vulnerability. Voluntary does not mean evenly spread.

So the order matters. Where a building can be made safe, elevation and flood proofing come first, and they work: see [flood proofing raises the house. the floodplain lowers the water](/guide/flood-proofing-raises-the-house-the-floodplain-lowers-the-water?from=guide). Retreat is for the building that cannot be made safe, decided by the people who live there.

## managed retreat moves the exposure

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says climate risks "result from dynamic interactions between climate-related hazards with the exposure and vulnerability of the affected human or ecological system to the hazards." **Exposure** is what is in the hazard's way: people, homes, roads, livelihoods.

Flood proofing works on vulnerability, how badly a building is damaged. Managed retreat works on exposure: whether a building is there at all. Which work moves which term is mapped in [hazard, exposure, vulnerability](/guide/hazard-exposure-vulnerability?from=guide).

A buyout takes one house out of the water's path. It does not change the water. The neighbors who stay, and the town downstream, still face the same flood, now beside an empty lot.

## how a US buyout works

Federally funded buyouts follow a common pattern. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) describes the basic move: "a local or state government purchases flood-prone land and structures and demolishes the structures." Taking part is a choice: "FEMA-funded buyouts are entirely voluntary and property owners cannot be forced to participate."

The land then carries a deed restriction. Under federal regulation, land acquired with FEMA money "must be dedicated and maintained in perpetuity as open space for the conservation of natural floodplain functions." Allowed uses include parks, wetlands management, nature reserves, cultivation and grazing. No new structures go up except as the rule allows, and any later sale must carry the original restrictions.

The scale is not small. From 1989 to 2017, FEMA funded 43,633 voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties, according to Mach and colleagues (2019). Each left land behind, restricted to open space in perpetuity. How grants pay for built works such as walls and leave the living system unfunded is in [the grant built the wall. the marsh was already there](/guide/the-grant-built-the-wall-the-marsh-was-already-there?from=guide).

## what happens to the land after

The deed says "maintained in perpetuity." The budget usually does not. CRS, in its 2025 update, is plain about it: "The local government is responsible for maintaining parcels of bought-out land and buyout programs generally do not include funding for future design, maintenance, or use of bought-out land." It adds that cost-share requirements and the cost of keeping open space "may prove to be a disincentive, particularly for small or disadvantaged communities," and lists "greater assistance to low-income communities for post-buyout maintenance" as one option.

Because buyouts are voluntary, the lots often do not come in one piece. CRS describes a "checkerboard" effect, "with some properties surrounded by vacant or underutilized parcels." A mowed lot between two houses is legally open space. Whether it does floodplain work depends on what happens to it next.

That is not a failure of buyout programs, which were built to get families out of harm's way. The land is the part nobody was handed a budget for.

## the open lot can be a working floodplain

After a family has gone, the lot is still in the water's path. What it does there depends on how it is kept. A mowed or cleared lot may do little. A lot that is planted and reconnected to the river can do more, and the evidence for that is limited.

Wetlands do not always reduce floods. A review of 169 studies by Bullock and Acreman (2003) found many cases where they did and many where they made floods worse, with support for flood control "confined largely to floodplain wetlands." A bought-out lot sits in a floodplain, but a cleared lot is not a floodplain wetland, one lot is small, and a record flood will exceed what any floodplain can hold. See [what wetlands actually are](/guide/what-wetlands-actually-are?from=guide).

What the regulation asks for is the conservation of natural floodplain functions. If the land does that work, it is shared: none of the neighbors who stayed owns the lot or pays for it directly. In plain terms it can be a **natural asset**, ground that delivers a service, kept by a local budget that was never sized for the job.

## what keeping it means

Keeping a buyout lot working is ordinary land work, done every year. The deed restriction already allows most of it.

| the work | what it does | who usually does it |
|---|---|---|
| Native cover | Replaces lawn and pavement with plants that hold soil and slow water | Parks crews, land trusts, volunteers |
| Reconnection | Removes fill, berms or old foundations so water can reach the lot | The local government, with engineers |
| Wetland management | Keeps low ground wet and planted, one of the uses the deed allows | Land stewards, conservation districts |
| Joining lots | Links scattered parcels so they work as one floodplain, not a checkerboard | Regional collaboratives, the town |
| A condition record | Notes each year what the land is and does, so anyone can see if it is slipping | Whoever keeps the land, in public |

What it lacks is a steady payer. How a place builds resilience from what it already has, living systems first, is in [how to build resilience for a place](/guide/how-to-build-resilience-for-a-place?from=guide) and [the resilience a place already has is alive](/guide/the-resilience-a-place-already-has-is-alive?from=guide).

:::johnson
**a buyout ends the exposure. it starts a floodplain someone has to keep.**

The family leaves the water's path. The land stays in it, and whether it does floodplain work depends on a keeping few budgets were sized for.

[see the flood resilience syndicate →](/flood-resilience.syndicate?from=guide)
:::

## who can pay for the keeping

The people who could gain from a well-kept buyout lot include the neighbors who stayed, local utilities and the agencies that pay after the next flood. Few of them pay for the lot's upkeep directly, so the job falls back on a local budget that, as CRS notes, often has nothing set aside for it.

That gap is what **ensurance** is designed for. As designed, a place, including a cluster of bought-out lots, can hold an **account** in its own name, and the keeping of the land can be named in a **certificate**. Payments from those who depend on it are meant to go as **proceeds** to the stewards doing the work, with a condition record anyone can read. The parent agent is [Risk Resilience](/risk-resilience.ensurance?from=guide), and the [flood resilience syndicate](/flood-resilience.syndicate?from=guide) is designed to group floodplain work across places.

It is never a reason to leave. Ensurance does not run buyouts, pick which homes go or advise anyone on whether to sell. It starts after the people who live there have decided, with the land they leave behind.

For a city or county with buyout land on its books, see [ensurance for governments](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=mitigation-and-adaptation). For a watershed group joining lots across towns, see [ensurance for regional collaboratives](/solutions/regional-collaboratives?from=guide&topic=mitigation-and-adaptation). If your buyout land has no account yet, [suggest your place](/specific/create?mode=suggest&agent=risk-resilience.ensurance&name=your%20place&from=guide).

## frequently asked questions

### what is managed retreat?

The planned move of homes and people away from places a hazard keeps reaching, often through voluntary buyouts. It changes exposure: what is in the hazard's way. The land left behind still has to be kept.

### what happens to land after a FEMA buyout?

It must be kept as open space in perpetuity for the conservation of natural floodplain functions, with uses such as parks, wetlands management, nature reserves and grazing. The local government is responsible for maintaining it, and buyout programs generally do not fund that upkeep.

### does ensurance pay for buyouts?

No. Ensurance does not buy homes or decide who moves. It is designed to give the land left behind an account and a way for the people who depend on it to pay for its keeping.

This post is general information, not insurance, engineering, legal or tax advice.

## sources

[Congressional Research Service, Insight IN11911, *Floodplain Buyouts: Federal Funding for Property Acquisition* (updated April 22, 2025)](https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IN11911.html) — How buyouts work, that they are voluntary, that local governments maintain the land without program funding, and the "checkerboard" effect

[44 CFR § 80.19, land subject to open space use restrictions (Cornell LII)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/44/80.19) — Acquired land "must be dedicated and maintained in perpetuity as open space for the conservation of natural floodplain functions," and its allowed uses

[Mach et al., *Managed retreat through voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties*, Science Advances 5(10) (2019)](https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax8995) — 43,633 FEMA-funded voluntary buyouts from 1989 to 2017, and where they concentrate

[Weber and Moore, *Going Under: Long Wait Times for Post-Flood Buyouts Leave Homeowners Underwater*, NRDC (September 2019), LSU-hosted copy](https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/blog/going-under-post-flood-buyouts-report.pdf) — A median of 5.2 years from flood to completed FEMA-funded buyout, across more than 43,000 properties

[IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report, Annex I: Glossary (2023)](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_Annex-I.pdf) — Definition of risk

[Bullock and Acreman, *The role of wetlands in the hydrological cycle*, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 7(3) (2003)](https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/7/358/2003/) — Wetlands can reduce or increase floods; support for flood control is confined largely to floodplain wetlands

## the series

1. [mitigation means two different things](/guide/mitigation-means-two-different-things?from=guide) — **Read first:** In climate policy, mitigation cuts emissions and adaptation cuts the damage; in insurance, mitigation is the adaptation
2. [hazard, exposure, vulnerability](/guide/hazard-exposure-vulnerability?from=guide) — The three things a loss is made of, and which one each kind of mitigation moves
3. [what home hardening does, and where it stops](/guide/what-home-hardening-does-and-where-it-stops?from=guide) — A ready house keeps embers out; how many arrive is shaped by the land around it
4. [flood proofing raises the house. the floodplain lowers the water](/guide/flood-proofing-raises-the-house-the-floodplain-lowers-the-water?from=guide) — Elevation, dry and wet flood proofing change the damage; the depth that arrives is shaped upstream
5. [wind mitigation is the house's job. the surge is the coast's](/guide/wind-mitigation-is-the-houses-job?from=guide) — The roof and its connections hold the wind; reefs, mangroves and dunes work on the water
6. [managed retreat leaves land behind](/guide/managed-retreat-leaves-land-behind?from=guide) — A buyout moves the exposure; the land it leaves can become floodplain someone has to keep
7. [every mitigation strategy has two halves](/guide/every-mitigation-strategy-has-two-halves?from=guide) — Harden what you own, keep what you stand on: a peril-by-peril map