Environment & Energy

Natural Hazard Mitigation

Issue
The cost of recovering from natural disasters is ultimately borne by the Federal Government. Costs run into the tens of billions of dollars per year. It is universally recognized that pre-disaster preparedness and mitigation is effective in substantially reducing the cost of recovery. Disasters affecting the United States include wind, flood, ice, and earthquakes; no area of the country is immune for the problem. Identifying and rehabilitating highly vulnerable areas within the built environment is one of the key aspects of mitigating the effects of natural disasters. While much is being done in isolated areas of the country, there is no national effort focused on significantly reducing the losses that will occur due to future natural disasters.

The vulnerability of the built environment to natural disasters, and the cost to recover, continues to grow annually for at least three reasons. First, as the country expands and the economy becomes more interlaced, the potential national impact of natural disasters increases. The quality of the built environment and its disaster resilience, however, is a local jurisdictional issue, and most jurisdictions do not enforce proper codes and standards. The impact of disasters could be significantly reduced if construction nationwide incorporated proper disaster-resilient design and construction. Second, the vast majority of the existing built environment does not comply with modern standards for disaster resilience, and the cost to retrofit all the deficiencies to modern standards is too high. Conditions with the highest potential impact (such as levees in New Orleans) need to be identified and rehabilitated. Finally, consistent funding has not been available to support implementation, monitoring, and research aimed at reducing the cost of mitigation.

ACEC Position
ACEC supports proactive preparation for natural disasters. At the national level, this requires full funding for the various programs under the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), National Wind Hazard Reduction Program (NWHRP), and FEMA’s pre- and post-disaster mitigation programs.