Adapting Climate Change Risk Through State-level Hazard Mitigation Plans

Abstract:

Climate change could amplify climate-related natural hazards. In 2011, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued a policy statement to integrate climate change adaptation actions into hazard mitigation programs, policies and plans. However, there is no comprehensive empirical study to discover the integration extent of the climate change issues in State Hazard Mitigation Plans (SHMPs). This study develops 18 indicators to examine the extent of climate change considerations in the 50 SHMPs since 2011. The results demonstrate that these SHMPs treated climate change issue in an uneven fashion with large variations among the 50 states. The overall plan quality for climate change considerations sustains in a medium level of awareness, analysis, and actions. The findings confirm that climate change concept and the historical extreme events have been well recognized by the majority of SHMPs. Even though not specific to climate change, mitigation and adaptation strategies that can help reduce the risk of climate change have been adopted in these plans. However, they are still lack of detailed assessment for climate change and more incentive collaboration strategies beyond emergency management agency.   

Keywords: 

Climate change, State Hazard Mitigation Plan (SHMP), Awareness, Analysis, Action, Mitigation, Adaptation