APPLYING PRACTITIONERS’ PERSPECTIVES: PLAN QUALITY EVALUATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE CONSIDERATIONS IN STATE HAZARD MITIGATION PLANS

Harirchi, Poya

APPLYING PRACTITIONERS’ PERSPECTIVES: PLAN QUALITY EVALUATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE CONSIDERATIONS IN STATE HAZARD MITIGATION PLANS

Files

Harirchi_hawii_0085A_11913.pdf (4.73 MB)

Date

2023

Authors

Harirchi, Poya

Advisor

Das, Priyam

Department

Urban & Regional Planning

Abstract

Climate change is a major issues facing coastal communities, and in turn, requires innovative responses to its implications. However, a strong federal climate change leadership is still largely lacking in the US. On the other hand, the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 has set a requirement for states to prepare and update their hazard mitigation plans (approved by FEMA) every 5 years to be eligible for certain federal disaster funds and grants to help communities in mitigation and adaptation to hazards, including climate change. Previous research has found that hazard mitigation planning also has the potential to enhance the efficiency for mitigation funding and strengthen states’ capabilities for reducing hazard damages; and therefore, it is imperative for states to appropriately address the risks associated with climate change by incorporating them into hazard mitigation plans.In this study, plan quality evaluation methods were used to assess climate change integration into State Hazard Mitigation Plans. Scholars have defined plan quality as a measure of the strengths in plans that are assumed to facilitate implementation efficacy and measured through the degree to which plans are aligned with agreed upon plan quality components. The components include the fact base; goals and objectives; policies, tools, and strategies; inter-organizational coordination; implementation; monitoring and evaluation; participation; and organization and presentation. Although there is general consensus about the components that should be included in high quality plans, a crucial missing part in this discourse is the views of planning practitioners. This study, therefore, addresses this gap by conducting a survey of planners in jurisdictions participating in climate change initiatives and utilizing the results to calculate and assign weights to the eight plan quality components and their corresponding indicators, which is a first attempt of its kind in plan quality research. There were 112 responses to the survey. Results showed that implementation; policies, tools, and strategies; and participation are seen as the most important contributors to plan quality by practitioners. The sample for this study included the latest State Hazard Mitigation Plans in 23 U.S. coastal states. The results of the evaluation show an overall medium quality in the studied plans. There is however, a large variation in plan quality by geographical regions, with states in the Northeast and the Pacific consistently having higher average component and total plan quality scores compared to states in the South. Correlation analysis with contextual variables shows that states with active GHG emissions targets, and those with higher population densities tend to have higher quality plans. Furthermore, states with higher dependency on energy, tend to have lower quality plans. This study also found a negative correlation between plan quality and FEMA funding. The results highlight the political nature of climate change action across coastal United States. Public perception of climate change can affect the extent to which climate change considerations are incorporated into state actions, including state hazard mitigation planning. The results also shows a strong relation between participation and total plan quality score. Overall, plans with stronger provisions for stakeholder participation, also have a more detailed fact base on risks associated with climate change, and policies and strategies to address these risks. Findings from this study can be used in guiding state and local governmental officials, planners, community leaders, and researchers towards enhancing the quality of hazard mitigation plans, in general, and climate change considerations, in particular, and identifying best practices. The results can also be used to improve the tools and process of evaluating state hazard mitigation plans longitudinally as the plans are updated, and comparing the current quality of these plans with previous studies.

Keywords

Urban planning, Climate Change, Evaluation, Hazard Mitigation Planning, Plan Quality

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/10125/108017

Extent

142 pages

Rights

All UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.

Collections

Ph.D. - Urban and Regional Planning

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