What is Hazard Mitigation?

The term "Hazard Mitigation" describes actions that can help reduce or eliminate long-term risks caused by hazards, or disaster, such as floods, hurricanes, wildfires, landslides, tornadoes, earthquakes, dam failures, or terrorism.   As the costs of disasters continue to rise, governments and ordinary citizens must find ways to reduce hazard risks to our communities and ourselves. Efforts made to reduce hazard risks are easily made compatible with other community goals; safer communities are more attractive to employers as well as residents.  As communities plan for new development and improvements to existing infrastructure, mitigation can and should be an important component of the planning effort.

While mitigation activities can and should be taken before a disaster event has the chance to occur, after disasters hazard mitigation is essential.  Oftentimes after disasters, repairs and reconstruction are often completed in such a way as to simply restore damaged property to pre-disaster conditions. These efforts may “get things back to normal”, but  the replication of pre-disaster conditions often results in a repetitive cycle of damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage. Hazard mitigation breaks this repetitive cycle by producing less vulnerable conditions through post-disaster repairs and reconstruction. The implementation of such hazard mitigation actions now  by state and local governments means building stronger, safer and smarter communities that will be able to reduce future injuries and future damage.

Hazard Mitigation Breaks the Cycle

When recurrent disasters take place, such as flooding along a river, repeated damage and reconstruction occurs. This recurrent reconstruction is often more expensive as the years go by. Hazard mitigation breaks this expensive cycle of recurrent damage and increasing reconstruction costs by taking a long-term view of rebuilding and recovery following natural disasters.

What Are the Benefits?

• Reduces the loss of life, property, essential services, critical facilities and economic hardship.
• Reduces short-term and long-term recovery and reconstruction costs.
• Increases cooperation and communication within the community through the planning process.
• Increases potential for state and federal funding for recovery and reconstruction projects.

What Are the Types Mitigation Actions That Can Be Taken?

Hazard mitigation actions are commonly broken into six different categories: 

• Prevention – Keep hazard risk from getting worse
• Property Protection – Modify existing development subject to hazard risk
• Public Education & Awareness – Inform people about hazardous areas and mitigation actions
• Natural Resource Protecti on – Reduce effects of hazards & improve quality of environment
• Emergency Services – Actions taken to ensure continuity of emergency services
• Structural Projects – Large manmade structures to control hazards

Common mitigation actions that are taken include the following:

• Enforcement of building codes, floodplain management codes  and environmental regulations
• Public safety measures such as continual maintenance of roadways, culverts and dams
• Acquisition of relocation of structures, such as purchasing buildings located in a floodplain
• Acquisition hazard prone lands in their undeveloped state to remain that way
• Retrofitting of structures & design of new construction such as elevating a home or building
• Coastal zone management, such as dune restoration and harbor s afety measures
• Protecting critical facilities and infrastructure from future hazard events
• Mitigation, disaster recovery and COOP planning
• Development  and distribution of outreach materials related to hazard mitigation
• Deployment of warning systems