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Evaluating climate change adaptation efforts on the US 50 states’ hazard mitigation plans

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Abstract

Climate change brings uncertain risks of climate-related natural hazards. The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA in Climate change: long-term trends and their implications for emergency management, 2011. https://www.fema.gov/pdf/about/programs/oppa/climate_change_paper.pdf) has issued a policy directive to integrate climate change adaptation actions into hazard mitigation programs, policies, and plans. However, to date there has been no comprehensive empirical study to examine the extent to which climate change issues are integrated into state hazard mitigation plans (SHMPs). This study develops 18 indicators to examine the extent of climate change considerations in the 50 SHMPs. The results demonstrate that these SHMPs treat climate change issues in an uneven fashion, with large variations present among the 50 states. The overall plan quality for climate change considerations was sustained at an intermediate level with regard to climate change-related awareness, analysis, and actions. The findings confirm that climate change concepts and historic extreme events have been well recognized by the majority of SHMPs. Even though they are not specific to climate change, mitigation and adaptation strategies that can help reduce climate change risks have been adopted in these plans. However, the plans still lack a detailed assessment of climate change and more incentives for collaboration strategies beyond working with emergency management agencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Community and Regional Planning Program, College of Architecture, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 313 Architecture Hall, Lincoln, NE, 68588-0105, USA

    Qiao Hu & Zhenghong Tang

  2. Department of Urban Planning and Management, School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

    Lei Zhang

  3. School of Public Administration, Central South University, Changsha, China

    Yuanyuan Xu & Xiaolin Wu

  4. School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, USA

    Ligang Zhang

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  1. Qiao Hu
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  2. Zhenghong Tang
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  4. Yuanyuan Xu
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  5. Xiaolin Wu
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  6. Ligang Zhang
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Correspondence to Zhenghong Tang.

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Hu, Q., Tang, Z., Zhang, L. et al. Evaluating climate change adaptation efforts on the US 50 states’ hazard mitigation plans. Nat Hazards 92, 783–804 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3225-z

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