Strategic Planning

Developing holistic strategies to put resources where they will most effectively reduce flood risk to people and property.

Flood planning is the process of developing visions, strategies, and tactics to reduce flooding and its impacts. State governments can use such plans to drive investments in flood projects and programs and develop policy across all levels of government and statewide agencies. The most effective plans rely on best available assessments of current and future risk and ensure projects, programs, and policies work together to create lasting, meaningful change in a community.

Where and how floodwaters flow is determined by watersheds. Because watersheds ignore jurisdictional boundaries and can span multiple communities, state governments are best positioned to organize large watershed-level approaches to flood planning.

States have two main roles in flood planning:

Setting statewide strategy

To protect communities from increasingly extreme weather, states should develop comprehensive statewide strategies for building flood resilience. Unfortunately, most states lack such comprehensive and inclusive approaches to flood planning, relying instead on all-hazards FEMA-approved State Hazard Mitigation Plans.

Planning checklist

The SRP developed a checklist to help state planners better prepare for flooding and sea level rise:

Recommendations

The following recommendations can guide states as they develop statewide strategies to flood planning.

Current challenges

All states have FEMA-approved State Hazard Mitigation Plans, but these often summarize a state’s activities and capabilities, stopping short of functioning as a comprehensive, strategic plan.
As State Hazard Mitigation Plans are a prerequisite for states to access much federal funding, these plans often become a “check the box” exercise for many states, missing the opportunity to undertake holistic strategic planning.

Recommendations

States should integrate their State Hazard Mitigation Plans with other state flood plans and programs.
The federal government can help states by providing expanded resources for planning (e.g., regional support teams, direct technical assistance for grant applications, formula funding for staffing).

Current challenges

Many plans rely on historical climate and disaster data, without incorporating projections for the future, and most fail to indicate the inclusion of population growth projections in their risk models.
Not including data on social vulnerabilities will lead to disproportionate and inequitable outcomes when floods occur. Frontline communities are often located in floodprone areas, which is frequently a result of discriminatory land use and housing policies and histories of overt segregation. That said, few state flood plans explicitly consider how flooding will disproportionately affect socially vulnerable communities.

Recommendations

States should incorporate flood models that include forward-looking climate projections into planning processes.
States should incorporate geographic data — that includes locations of projected population growth and socially vulnerable communities — into risk assessments.
States should engage with socially vulnerable communities, which includes establishing metrics to measure the state’s level of engagement, incorporating these perspectives into risk assessments, and ensuring these communities’ needs are met in mitigation plans.
States should increase data resources, hiring staff and engineers at the state level and providing access to these resources at the local level.

Current challenges

States lean heavily on local governments to carry out state flood plans, with most plans identifying counties as responsible for implementation.
Local assistance is particularly important for communities that have been historically and systemically excluded from government aid; however, few plans include specific strategies to assist low-capacity communities. Limiting direct engagement between communities and state planners means local needs may not be fully integrated into state plans.

Recommendations

States should target efforts to ensure low-capacity communities can access state funding and technical assistance.
States should highlight co-benefits of projects to encourage buy-in and coordination among stakeholders.
States should engage with local communities to tap into lived knowledge of flooding impacts and budget time and funds for public engagement beyond cursory public comment periods in flood planning processes.
The federal government should encourage and reward comprehensive state planning efforts that prioritize ongoing engagement; states should encourage and reward local jurisdictions that develop their own plans that prioritize ongoing engagement with diverse stakeholders and residents.

Current challenges

Without a strong strategy to carry out plan projects and initiatives, states run the risk of standing idle and missing their goals.
Despite this, few plans identify who carries out projects, how projects are funded, or what projects are prioritized.

Recommendations

State plans should include specific initiatives and actions with concrete details, including project scoping information, goals, timelines, committed funds, and responsible parties, as well as public communication and accountability strategies.
States should incorporate flood-related resilience objectives into daily operations and agency priorities.
States should create a prioritized list of projects and actions linked to accountable entities and funding sources.
States should use metrics tied to desired strategic outcomes, rather than outputs, to track and report progress.
States should include processes to evaluate actions taken and make policy and project recommendations to improve future resilience.

Current challenges

State flood strategies are often spread across multiple plans and a wide range of agencies. This can lead to different, and sometimes competing, planning principles, time horizons, and objectives, as well as risk projections that fail to account for a state’s full flood risk.
Many flood strategies are only changed after a disaster — and then stagnate when political will and funds dwindle. Without reliable funding and regular planning timelines, communities cannot critically assess goals and values — nor can they ensure accurate flood risk assessments, coordination, and public participation.

Recommendations

States should establish a central source responsible for strategic flood planning, which includes determining the plan’s values and goals, as well as the outcomes that indicate success.
States should establish timelines to regularly update flood plans, rather than only after disasters.
States should dedicate funding for flood planning and other hazard mitigation planning, including for continual data collection and analysis.

States in focus

As states become more aware of the risks posed by extreme weather, many have become interested in more innovative approaches to state flood planning.

Providing technical assistance

States are integral partners in building flood resilience locally. The experiences of existing state-to-local technical assistance programs for planning provide best practices in designing and implementing similar programs in other states. Below are four strategies to carry out an effective technical assistance program, along with with examples from existing programs.

Recommendations

It can be too expensive for some communities to complete a comprehensive local plan to reduce flooding; however, states can fund efforts to both create and carry out these plans.
This project pipeline model improves outcomes for all communities, but especially for historically disadvantaged communities that often suffer the worst impacts of flooding.

Examples

Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program: MVP provided $15,000 to $30,000 in 2022 planning grants for communities to undergo a planning workshop to identify and prioritize adaptation strategies. Communities were then designated as an “MVP Community” and could request up to $3 million in MVP action grants — with regional proposals allowed to apply for $5 million.
Rhode Island Municipal Resilience Program (MRP): MRP provides a free planning workshop, led by The Nature Conservancy, for municipalities that apply for MRP’s municipal-driven planning process. At the end of the workshop, municipalities become “Resilient Rhody Municipalities” and can apply for dedicated MRP Action Grants.

Recommendations

When states create a transparent selection process for projects with explicit scoring criteria, municipalities can improve social equity and environmental justice outcomes by crafting applications with these clear criteria in mind. Additionally, by eliminating nuance and personal biases in application reviews, transparent selection processes improve outcomes for historically disadvantaged communities.
By lowering local match requirements for grants to historically disadvantaged communities, states reduce a major obstacle for participation by local governments. In 2022, FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program lowered the state or local match to 10% for poor and rural communities, while keeping the 25% match requirement for other applicants.

Examples

Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program: After evaluating its application process, MVP added climate and environmental justice metrics into the evolving program.
Virginia Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (RAFT): The RAFT University Collaborative amended the original Resilience Scorecard to incorporate social and environmental equity metrics and added interviews with community based-organizations (CBO). The results of the updated scorecard and CBO interviews will help municipalities prioritize projects with a better understanding of community needs and equity challenges.

Recommendations

Because water does not follow municipal or county boundaries, states should establish local technical assistance programs with a focus on regional watersheds. Regional watershed approaches to flood resilience encourage municipalities to work together to ensure projects consider both upstream and downstream communities.

Examples

Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program: While MVP Communities could request up to $3 million in 2022 action grants, regional entities could apply for up to $5 million.
Virginia Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (RAFT): RAFT focuses on regional cohorts across Virginia. With support from RAFT, localities in each cohort discussed shared regional goals and needs, as well as ways to avoid duplicating efforts across communities.

Recommendations

For local governments, it can be overwhelming and too expensive to acquire and maintain updated flood and climate data. If the state provides and maintains comprehensive, forward-looking, accessible data, local governments can design cost-effective infrastructure built to last.
By standardizing resources and processes, states open the program to more communities, while reducing the burden on the state in the long-term.

Examples

Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program: MVP directs municipalities to use specific state and federal tools — from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, and the U.S. Census Bureau — to gather data and inform projects related to climate vulnerable populations. MVP also uses the Community Resilience Building workshop to standardize the process for selecting projects and educating communities.
Rhode Island Municipal Resilience Program (MRP): A planning workshop, led by The Nature Conservancy in partnership with MRP, helps communities prioritize projects by identifying top hazards, challenges, and community strengths. Each workshop is free for participating municipalities.
Virginia Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (RAFT): Using the standardized RAFT scorecard and interviews, RAFT conducts an external assessment of community resilience. This assessment informs municipalities of their resilience challenges so that they can prioritize projects in the RAFT regional community leadership workshop.

States in focus

As states become more aware of the risks posed by extreme weather, many have become interested in more innovative approaches to state flood planning.

Massachusetts

The MVP Program’s two-part structure – planning grants and action grants – ensures communities have the resources to identify projects and make them a reality.

Rhode Island

The MRP combines planning and capacity building workshops with action grants to implement local resilience projects.

Virginia

The RAFT helps Virginia’s under-resourced localities improve flood and other climate hazard resilience by offering an easy and accessible way to measure localities’ baseline resilience and propose solutions.

Additional resources

Report

State Flood Resilience and Adaptation Planning: Challenges and Opportunities

Urban Institute

Report

Advancing Critical Solutions to Protect Coastal Communities

Coastal States Organization

Case Study

Iowa’s Watershed Approach: A Model Framework

Iowa Flood Center

Webinar

Flood Resilience and Adaptation Planning in the U.S.: Challenges and Opportunities

The Pew Charitable Trusts