Content originally published in May 2012 by author Ginni Melton. Updated in April 2024.
When determining whether a natural event may become a disaster, emergency managers and responders need to know who and what has the potential to be impacted by the natural event. Jurisdictions often know where natural events, such as floods, have historically occurred and sometimes have estimates of impact for certain frequency events, but they rarely know who is going to be impacted. As climate change shifts local, regional, and global weather patterns, natural events’ frequency, duration, and intensity are no longer aligning with historic patterns. Climate-based risk and vulnerability assessments can help local governments, emergency managers, and first responders understand what essential community assets may be impacted by a natural event, and whom in a community may experience impacts.
The impact of a natural event in a community is shaped in part by the community’s land use and communication strategies for socially vulnerable populations. Future land use planning that accounts for natural events’ potential to become hazardous and FEMA’s Community Lifelines framework can help communities identify and protect community assets whose continued functionality during natural events is essential for community safety, especially for vulnerable populations.
Community Lifelines
Community Lifelines are services and assets that enable continuous operation of critical government and business functions, which are essential to human health and safety and economic security. Using the Community Lifelines framework can help local governments, emergency managers, and first responders quickly understand root causes of service disruptions associated with natural events.
Current and Future Land Use
Understanding current land use patterns and effective future land use planning can help reduce the impacts of natural events on communities. Land use planning via comprehensive planning, zoning ordinances, and conservation easements is an important tool municipalities can leverage to protect the public health, safety, and welfare from natural events. Identifying areas and critical facilities in areas likely to experience natural events can inform future land use planning to mitigate exposure to natural events.
Tailoring Response to Specific Populations
Emergency response efforts can be tailored to target the needs of vulnerable populations before, during, and after an event. If an area has a large foreign language speaking population, they may want for warnings to go out in multiple languages and to make translators available in emergency shelters. If the affected county has a large elderly population, emergency managers and responders may want to develop outreach programs where neighbors check in on the elderly or develop transportation services for evacuation efforts for those not able to drive.
Risk and Vulnerability Assessments Prepare Communities
A natural event only becomes a disaster when it impacts human life, property, or livelihood. Thoughtful land use planning can reduce the impacts of a natural event on the built environment, and effective emergency response efforts and communication can reduce the human impact of natural events. Understanding the potential geographic extents of natural events and identifying at-risk populations through a risk and vulnerability assessment can inform future land use planning and emergency response strategies.
State governments are beginning to require or support the development of risk and vulnerability assessments for local communities. At our firm, we’ve supported federal, state, local, and tribal risk and vulnerability assessments for more than 30 years. This includes projects such as the State of Connecticut Hazard Mitigation Plan, Virginia Beach Sea Level Rise and Flood Analysis, and multiple communities via the North Carolina Resilient Coastal Communities Program. By identifying geographic areas and critical facilities likely to experience natural events and the vulnerable populations in the community, municipal managers are able to prioritize future land use changes to reduce impacts to the built environment and tailor emergency response strategies for the most vulnerable members of the community.