Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of precipitation events in the Northeast United States. Severe precipitation events impact communities vulnerable to disturbances in water systems. My dissertation research investigates the impact of flooding and severe weather on communities in Massachusetts. This research aims to reveal potential gaps between the modeled hydrodynamic landscape of climate change and real-life systemic conditions that render communities exposed to differential risks and environmental detriments. To mitigate this gap, I use risk assessment tools, community engagement strategies, and GIS to evaluate how the socioeconomic landscape plays a role in exposure and adaptation to climate hazards. I document potential water resource risks, adaptation strategies, and risk-taking behavior in historically and systemically disadvantaged communities in Massachusetts and base specific implications on a case study region in Western Massachusetts: Holyoke, MA. In the first study, I employed spatial mapping tools to investigate the overlaps between flood insurance rate map hazard designation and social vulnerability. Findings from this study demonstrate that EJ communities are increasingly occupying flood zones from 2010 to 2020 (a 522% increase). EJ communities were 81.6% more likely to occupy severe flood zones in Massachusetts across all years. In the second project, hydrological and agricultural resources are then analyzed through the lens of a climate justice framework, with a focus on communities historically and systemically excluded from water resources research. Collaborating with community stakeholders, I produce a cultural arthrography using a climate-justice framework that identifies three areas of water resources research fundamental towards attaining recognitional, distributional, and procedural justice. I develop discourse, identify knowledge systems, and perform analyses that reveal emerging opportunities to produce social change, benefitting all citizens constrained by intersectional tensions in climate change. In conclusion, understanding the hydraulic linkages between the socioeconomic and hazard landscape is critical for developing environmentally-just climate adaptation strategies. This work follows the tradition of other interdisciplinary scholars and advances further methods for integrating these approaches for developing new insights.