Overview

Once hazard mitigation is included in a city's comprehensive plan, the region and its citizens are more prepared to respond to a potential natural disaster. The purpose of this thesis was to illuminate factors that encourage cities to include hazard mitigation within their comprehensive plans. The research used geographic information system (GIS) and census data to locate urban, suburban, and rural areas at risk of flooding and analyzed these regions' comprehensive plans. The research results suggest that previous major flooding events often lead to the inclusion of flood-related hazard mitigation into cities' comprehensive plans. This finding suggests that policy alone does not influence hazard mitigation; other methods should be practiced to ensure hazard mitigation is included within neighborhood/city comprehensive plans. I. INTRODUCTION * A. RESEARCH QUESTIONS * B. PROBLEM STATEMENT * C. LITERATURE REVIEW * 1. Hazard Mitigation and Planning * 2. Participatory Planning * 3. Planning and GIS * D. RESEARCH DESIGN * E. CHAPTER OUTLINE * II. BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY * A. DEFINITIONS * B. METHODOLOGY * 1. ArcMap * 2. Comprehensive Plans * III. COMMONALITIES AMONG STATES WITH A HIGH PERCENTAGE OF FLOODING HAZARD MITIGATION DISCUSSION IN COMPREHENSIVE PLANS * A. INTRODUCTION * B. HIGH-PERCENTAGE STATES * 1. Illinois * 2. California * 3. Wisconsin * IV. COMMONALITIES AMONG STATES WITH A LOW PERCENTAGE OF FLOODING HAZARD MITIGATION DISCUSSION IN COMPREHENSIVE PLANS * A. INTRODUCTION * B. LOW-PERCENTAGE STATES * 1. Maryland * 2. Virginia * V. CONCLUSION * A. ORDINANCES, PAST FLOODING, AND FLOODING VULNERABILITY * B. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S ROLE Following this introduction and literature review, Chapter II discusses my research design in greater detail. Chapter III shows my analysis for determining the commonalities of states with a high percentage of comprehensive plans that account for flood-related resiliency. Similar to Chapter III, Chapter IV shows the analyzed commonalities of the chosen states that had a low percentage of comprehensive plans with flood-related hazard mitigation, but that still included hazard mitigation within their plan. The final chapter, Chapter V, consists of my findings and conclusion. My findings focus on the states in Chapter III and Chapter IV that included disaster resiliency in their comprehensive plans to reveal the reasons why these particular jurisdictions included hazard mitigation. In addition, I suggest policy considerations for community planning academic programs and the federal government, and make general suggestions for cities based on my findings.

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