The variational effects of jurisdictional attributes on hazard mitigation planning costs

Authors

  • Andrea M. Jackman, PhD
  • Mario G. Beruvides, PhD, PE

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5055/jem.2015.0217

Keywords:

mitigation, FEMA, planning

Abstract

Under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 and Federal Emergency Management Agency's subsequent Interim Final Rule, the requirement was placed on local governments to author and gain approval for a Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP) for the areas under their jurisdiction. Low completion percentages for HMPs—less than one-third of eligible governments— were found by an analysis conducted 3 years after the final deadline for the aforementioned legislation took place. Follow-up studies showed little improvement at 5 and 8 years after the deadline. Based on these results, a previous study hypothesized that the cost of creating a HMP might be an influential factor in explaining why most jurisdictions had failed to write or gain approval for a HMP. The frequency of natural hazards experienced by the planning jurisdiction, the number of jurisdictions participating in the plan, and the population and population density were found to explain more than half of the variation in HMP costs. This study is a continuation of that effort, finding that there are significant differences in cost both across ranges of values for the jurisdictional attributes and single-jurisdictional versus multijurisdictional plans.

Author Biographies

Andrea M. Jackman, PhD

IBM Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Mario G. Beruvides, PhD, PE

AT&T Professor of Industrial Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.

References

Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, Pub L No. 106-390, 114 Stat 1552; 2000.

Federal Emergency Management Agency: Hazard mitigation planning and hazard mitigation grant program. 44 Federal Register, 67. Federal Emergency Management Agency; February 26, 2002: 8844-8854.

Federal Emergency Management Agency: How-To Guide for State and Local Mitigation Planning (No. 386). Jessup, MD: Federal Emergency Management Agency; 2002.

Jackman AM, Beruvides MG: Federal funding through hazard mitigation plans: A preliminary estimation of state-level completion from 2004 to 2009. J Emerg Manage. 2013; 11: 2.

Jackman AM, Beruvides MG: How much do hazard mitigation plans cost? An analysis of federal grant data. J Emerg Manage. 2013; 11: 4.

United States Census Bureau: Population data by subject. Available at http://www.census.gov/population/www/. Accessed April 14, 2008.

Published

02/25/2016

How to Cite

Jackman, PhD, A. M., and M. G. Beruvides, PhD, PE. “The Variational Effects of Jurisdictional Attributes on Hazard Mitigation Planning Costs”. Journal of Emergency Management, vol. 13, no. 1, Feb. 2016, pp. 53-60, doi:10.5055/jem.2015.0217.