PLANNING TOOLS FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND COMMUNITY RESILIENCE: LESSONS FROM NATURAL HAZARD MITIGATION PLANNING

Erica Hetzel & Erica LargenUAP 4364: Environmental Planning Seminar

Rationale: Climate Adaptation from Natural Hazard Mitigation

The Climate Imperative Key Terms Natural Hazard Mitigation Planning Specific Lessons Critical Issues Emerging Trends Community-Based Preparedness Summary

CONTENTS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO5l1T6vIT0

RATIONALE environmental, political, social and

economic circumstances: product of our culture - multidimensional problems

enhanced our ability to make collective best land use and management techniques & how to adapt to the environment

Key Terms “Adaptation”

Adjustment in natural or human systems to a new

or changing environment that exploits beneficial

opportunities or moderates negative effects.

Key Terms “Adaptive Capacity”

The potential of a system to adjust to climate change, to

moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities,

and to cope with the consequences. A society’s ability

is a function of its adaptive capacity.

Key Terms “Resilience”

A capability to anticipate, prepare for, respond to,

and recover from significant multi-hazard threats

with minimum damage to social

well-being, the economy, and the environment.

Key Terms “Mitigation”

Intercepting the impacts of a hazard or climate change. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions

(climate change); weakening the effects (natural hazards)

Key Terms “Vulnerability”

The degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of

climate change, including climate variability and extremes. Lessons from natural hazards and

poverty

Key Terms “Risk”

A combination of the magnitude of potential consequences of climate

change impacts and the likelihood that these consequences will occur.

Risk = hazard + exposure + vulnerability

HAZARD MITIGATION PLANNING

Adapting to a changing climate may be new, but planning for and mitigating the effects of natural disasters is not.

Traditional natural hazard mitigation planning employs a top-down, techno-economic planning approach, with minor public participation.

HAZARD MITIGATION PLANNING

Disaster: Government and humanitarian orgs provide Relief.

Rebuild: often in same place potential for increased damages & greater

need for relief in future. The actual hazard,

exposure to the hazard,

vulnerability and risk are not adequately addressed

FEMA: rebuilding controls - to learn from experience. Require plan to qualify for federal relief. Promotes hazard-resilient communities

FEDERAL HISTORY OF HAZARD MITIGATION PLANNING

Before 1950: state & local gov’ts & humanitarian orgs

Federal Disaster Relief Act in 1950 1968: National Flood Insurance Act

(NFIP) Disaster Relief Act of 1974 1979: FEMA created to coordinate disaster

response that overwhelms state and local authorities.

1988: Stafford Act gave FEMA responsibility to coordinate governmental relief efforts

Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000

FEDERAL HISTORY OF HAZARD MITIGATION PLANNING

We are more dependent on federal disaster relief than ever.

federal government failing to provide more assistance allow rebuilding elsewhere

the root problem: communities exist in the way of natural hazards.

LESSON: FLOOD HAZARD MITIGATION

Hurricane Sandy: “environmental and public health disaster”

Millions of gallons of sewage into NY and NJ waterways from crippled sewage treatment plants

$1.1 billion needed for repair waterproof motors and electrical equipment above new

flood levels + levees to keep from re-damaging costly improvements.

[The inadequacy of our infrastructure for increasingly stronger storm surges]

LESSON: FLOOD HAZARD MITIGATION

Nonstructural controls: floodplain management, land acquisition, structure relocation [avoid future damages.]

Floodplain management: concentrating on new & existing development. New development is exposed to flooding & can result in flood level surcharge.  

Structural controls: floodwalls & channel enlargement have prevented significant damage.

Total damage due has increased over time: increased property values and human occupancy of floodplains.

Structural solutions can never give complete damage protection but simply make disaster events less frequent  

LESSON: FLOOD HAZARD MITIGATION

The costly repairs, equipment upgrades, and structural mitigation measures do not give complete disaster protection.

Must ensure effects of flooding are not further exasperated by new development in flood prone areas.

LESSON: COASTAL BARRIER ISLANDS

Coastal barriers reduce vulnerability by defending against storm surges and hurricane-force winds. Foundations of a strong economy & healthy environment

LESSON: COASTAL BARRIER ISLANDS

The Coastal Barrier Resources Act of 1982 free market discouraging development for coastal resource conservation

Does not regulate how, but transfers the full cost of developing from federal taxpayers to those who choose to build.

The CBRA’s Flaws: Only applied to those islands yet to be developed. Did not prevent developers from using their own money to build

Holding the line on federal support? Virtually nothing to contain development. A deregulation serving private interests There is urgency for proper policy

formation.

LESSON: WILDFIRES King County in 2007 Climate Plan provided

resources to small-forest landowners to promote forest health and reduce forest fire risk.

UWA & WSU: partnership engages public through education in community training programs.

Providing useful resources to landowners -first step in protecting vegetative areas from natural hazards

U.S. Forest Service established National Wildland/Urban Interface Fire Program to mitigate wildfire hazards by education and technical assistance to community firefighters, urban planners, landscape architects, building designers, and contractors.

LESSON: WILDFIRES Economic incentives to private landowners

to employ management practices that protect ecological health.

Implement smart growth policies and infill development in urban areas - transfer or purchase of development rights or use value assessment.

To protect critical environmental areas is to reduce the vulnerability of populations,

property, and resources to natural hazards and increase the resilience of the

community to climate change.

LESSON: RESISTANCE, RESILIENCE AND RESTORATION

Oysters, once with populations in the trillions, used to provide protection to New Yorkers from storm surges and helped to stabilize the shoreline.

Broke up waves before they could reach the shore

Mined natural oyster beds for lime “But what is fairly certain is that storms like Sandy are going to grow stronger and more

frequent, and our shorelines will become more vulnerable. For the present storm, all we could do was stock up on canned goods

and fill our bathtubs. But for storms to come, we’d better start planting a lot more

oysters”

LESSON: RESISTANCE, RESILIENCE AND RESTORATION

Disturbances are the determining force for ecological components – populations, communities, and ecosystems.

Ecological restoration processes: restoring oysters to NY Harbor or protecting wetlands strengthen community resilience. Wetlands mitigate flood damage, control

shoreline erosion, improve water quality, & recharge groundwater

LESSON: RESISTANCE, RESILIENCE AND RESTORATION

Strength increasing & endpoints are uncertain: resilience difficult to estimate.

Effective restoration takes time. Begin without the lengthy investigation for thresholds, a limit of techno-economic approach. Projects should be an adaptive management framework - effectively monitored though a long-term commitment

CRITICAL ISSUES Political pressure to return communities

to their pre-disaster impact state: adverse to adaptation in general.

Counter desire to make money Top-down techo-economic intervention. Resilience is more than a technical

concept. Disasters are social in nature.

EMERGING TRENDS Disaster planning to reduce vulnerability is

evolving to include social dimensions and public participation.

Resilient Communities Should: plan for long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability, and by strengthening neighborhood and organizational capacity”

Hurricane Katrina illustrated the need for a strong social fabric and resilient economy, including the most vulnerable groups

and can rebound from impacts for public services.

Requires: sound infrastructure, coordinated private risk management plans, and first-rate disaster planning, training, and awareness programs.

POLICY CHANGES Power relations, structures, and access to

resources exacerbate pressures Policy change is needed to employ adaptive

hazard mitigation (1) policy advocacy coalitions?(2) policy streams and windows ?(3) punctuated equilibrium?

Exposure to a hazard can influence learning. The social or economic crisis can make the issue important politically, thereby motivating policy change.

Persuasion by respected actors and collective action were key to national response

POVERTY REDUCTION Socio-political and physical processes at different spatial and

temporal scales produce vulnerability though causal factors (exposure, sensitivity, and resilience or ability to respond).

Who is most vulnerable to the impacts? How interactions between society and nature create degrees of vulnerability?

COMMUNITY-BASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND CLIMATE ADAPTATION Community-based and preemptive approaches: focus on the root causes of vulnerability rather than

isolated disaster events build to local capacity for resilience.

Participant empowerment and the transmission of ideas from the bottom up

Cost effectiveness. Social capital is considered Applied to multiple objectives for disaster prevention,

sustainable development, and institution-building To shape cultural institutions and contributions to

policy.

Discussion: What are the most important lessons we

can learn from natural hazard mitigation planning to plan for climate change adaptation?

Is there still a role for top-down policy approaches when encouraging communities to become resilient?

Do we, as students graduating from Virginia Tech, have a role in planning for climate adaptation?

Summary Planning for climate change resilience

must address physical, economic, social, and political vulnerability to build social capital.

There is much to learn from Natural Hazard Mitigation Planning

The coordination and adaptive capacity (the ability to learn) among supporting agencies, groups, and citizens as well as through a multi-community dialogue will create more resilient communities.

The natural hazard planning can no longer take the reactive planning approach. The global effects of climate change will produce frequent and more severe hazards and weather patterns.

“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is

coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” - Winston Churchill