State Hazard Mitigation Plans & Climate Change:  Rating the States

Center for Climate Change Law Columbia Law School November, 2013 

Climate change is affecting and will continue to affect the frequency and severity of natural hazard events, a trend that is of increasing concern for emergency managers and hazard mitigation agencies across the United States. Proper response to these hazards will require preparation and planning. Unfortunately, states are not required to include analysis of climate change in their State Hazard Mitigation Plans, which leads to uneven treatment of the issue and missed opportunities for mitigation planning. This survey identifies those state plans that address climate change and climate-related issues in an accurate and helpful manner and those that do not....

General  

Each of the reviewed SHMPs was placed in a category based on the overall quality of the discussion of climate change impacts on hazards and climate change adaptation actions. SHMPs placed in category 4 featured the most complete and helpful integration of climate change related information, whereas SHMPs placed in category 1 featured the least complete and/or unhelpful integration of such information. Table 1 provides a general description of each category and lists the states placed in that category, and Figure 1 provides a visual representation of these rankings.

The four categories are discussed in further depth below.

read ... A discussion about discussion