We developed a site planning guidebook for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that identifies strategies to reduce natural hazard impacts. The guidebook focuses on hazards that impact fast-growing communities across the country and provides guidance for how site planning professionals can identify increasing risks from extreme weather events and climate change. The project explored multiple types of floods (i.e. coastal, riverine, and urban/stormwater), strong wind events, wildfire, drought and extreme heat, landslides, earthquakes, and tsunamis.
To address the broad project scope, our team worked closely with an interdisciplinary group of experts to develop content, sharing draft material at key stages of the project. Our team also created graphics to illustrate key concepts and mitigation strategies and included case studies from across the county to highlight successful examples of climate change adaptation and risk reduction. The final product is innovative for its breadth, highlighting mitigation approaches across different hazards, and identifying multiple benefit strategies and areas where site planners will need to consider potential conflicts.
Outcomes
- Formed an interdisciplinary review panel of experts from across the country to oversee the project and ensure guidance is aligned to current best-practices and emerging research.
- Provides best practice guidance for rapidly development communities throughout the United States on how site planning techniques can increase resilience to natural hazards and disasters.
