Texas A&M University College of Architecture

Best Practices

This webpage identifies web-based resources related to best practices and emerging technologies related to hazard mitigation planning, building codes, and land use planning that can be employed by local communities to enhance their ability to mitigation against the impacts of coastal hazards.

Best Practices in Hazard Mitigation

Best Practices by Hazard Type

Best Practice in Planning, Management and Administration

Building Code
- American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE):
  This webpage provides building codes and standards.
- Building code resources
- Building code reference library:
  This webpage provides detailed information on building codes for all 50 states, major cities, and some counties.
- Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation:
  This webpage provides information of Florida building Code.
- Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) building code
  - Building codes
  - Rating the States
- National Institute of Building Sciences Whole-Building Design Guide (WBDG)
Coastal Zone Management (CZM)
- CZM Program by NOAA
- NOAA Boundary Making
Environmental Quality
Land Use Planning
- American Planning Association (APA):
  The APA has conducted research regarding integrating hazard mitigation into local planning and introduced best practices.
- Annotated bibliography regarding integrating hazard mitigation in local planning and best practices
- The Bureau of Land Management (BLS)
Recovery Planning
- American City and County:
  Coastal towns rethink development patterns: Katrina recovery plans incorporate mixed uses.
- NOAA Post-storm Assessments
- US American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)

Technical Tools and Modeling Tools for Best Practices

Evacuation Modeling
- CATS/ JACE (Consequence Assessment Tool Set/Joint Assessment of Catastrophic Events)
- ETIS (Evacuation Traffic Information Systems):
  Recommended practices for hurricane evacuation traffic operations by Texas Transportation Institute (TTI).
- HURREVAC (Hurricane Evacuation)
- Hurricane Evacuation Management Decision Support System (EMDSS)
- MASSVAC (Mass Evacuation Transportation Model)
- OREMS (Oak Ridge Evacuation Modeling System)
Flood Risk Modeling
Multi-hazards
- FEMA HAZUS:
  for estimating potential losses from earthquakes, wind, and floods.
- National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS)-Multihazard Risk Assessment/HAZUS:
  for estimating potential building and infrastructure losses from earthquakes, riverine and coastal floods, and hurricane winds.
- Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS):
  records of county-level hazard data set for the U.S. for 18 different natural hazard events types.
- Texas Coastal Communities Planning Atlas Mapping Service
- Texas Hazard Mitigation Package (THMP):
  THMP is an online digital geographic data resource for hazard analysis in Texas.
Winter Weather
Wildfire
- USGS Fire Danger Forecast
- USGS LANDIFRE Data Distribution Site

Academic Resources on Best Practices (journal articles, books, reports, etc.)

Mitigation
- Samuel D. Brody, Sammy Zahran, Wesley E. Highfield, Sarah Bernhardt and Arnold Vedlitz. Policy Learning for Flood Mitigation: A Longitudinal Assessment of the Community Rating System in Florida.
- Deyle, R. E., Chapin, T. S., & Baker, E. J. (2008). The proof of the planning is in the platting: An evaluation of Florida’s hurricane exposure mitigation planning mandate. Journal of the American Planning Association, 74(3), 349–370.
- Gladwin, H., Lazo J., Morrow, B.H., Peacock, W.G. &Willoughby, H.E. (2007). Social science research needs for the hurricane forecast and warning systems. Natural Hazards Review, 8(3): 87–95.
- Godschalk, D. R. (2000). Avoiding coastal hazard areas: Best state mitigation practices. Environmental Geosciences, 7(1), 13–22.
- Yue, G., Peacock, W.G., & Lindell, M.K. 2011. Florida Households’ Expected Response to Hurricane Hazards Mitigation Incentives. Risk Analysis, 31(10):1676-91.
- Nelson, A.C., & French, S.P. (2002). Plan quality and mitigating damage from natural disasters: Case study of the Northridge earthquake with planning policy consideration. Journal of the American Planning Association, 68(2), 194–207.
- Peacock, W.G. 2003. Hurricane mitigation status and factors influencing mitigation status among Florida’s single-family homeowners. Natural Hazards Review, 4(3): 1-10.
- Peacock, W.G., & Prater, C. 2012. Social Protection and Disaster Risk Reduction. Chapter 56 in Ben Wisner, J.C. Gillard, and Ilan Kelman, Handbook of Hazards, Disaster Risk Reduction and Management. London: Routledge.
- Peacock, W.G., Brody, S.D., Prater, C., Wunneburger, D., Ndubisi, F., Martin, J., Grover, H., Kang, J.E., Husein, R., Burns, G., & Kennedy, T. (2008). Status and Trends of Coastal Vulnerability to Natural Hazards Project/Annual Report for Phase 1.
- Peacock, W.G., Brody, S.D., Prater, C., Wunneburger, D., Ndubisi, D., Martin, J., Grover, H., Kang, J.E., Husein, R., Burns, G.R., & Kennedy, T. (2009). Status and Trends of Coastal Vulnerability to Natural Hazards Project/Annual Report for Phase 2.
- Peacock, W.G., Brody, S.D., Grover, H., Wunneburger, D., Kang, J.E., Husein, R., Burns, G.R., Kim, H.J., Ndubisi, F., & Martin, J. (2011). Status and Trends of Coastal Vulnerability to Natural Hazards Project/Annual Report for Phase 3.
- Peacock, W.G., Grover, H., Mayunga, J., Van Zandt, S., Brody, S.D., & Kim, H.J. (2011). The Status and Trends of Population Social Vulnerabilities along the Texas Coast with special attention to the Coastal Management Zone and Hurricane Ike: The Coastal Planning Atlas and Social Vulnerability Mapping Tools.
- Peacock, W.G., Husein, R., Burns, G.R., Kennedy, T., Kang, J.E., & Prater, C. (2009). The Elite Report: A Report on the Perception of State, County, and Local Officials Regarding the State of Texas Mitigation Plan, Coastal Management Plan and the Promotion of Mitigation Efforts in The Texas Coastal Management Zone.
- Peacock, W.G., Kang, J.E., Husein, R., Burns, G., Prater, C., Brody, S, D., Kennedy, T. (2009). An Assessment of Coastal Zone Hazard Mitigation Plans in Texas.
- Peacock, W.G., Kang, J.E., Lin, Y-S., Grover, H., Husein, R., & Burns, G.R. (2009). Status and Trends of Coastal Hazard Exposure and Mitigation Policies for the Texas Coast: The Mitigation Policy Mosaic of Coastal Texas.
- Prater, C. & Kennedy, T. (2009). Integrating Coastal Zone Management and Hazard Mitigation: Assessing the Potential Compatibilities of the Coastal Management Program and State of Texas Mitigation Plan.
- Schwab, J.C. (Ed.). (2010). Hazard mitigation: Integrating best practices into planning. Chicago, IL: American Planning Association, Planning Advisory Service. Report Number 560.
- Zahran, S., Brody, S.D., Grover, H. & Vedlitz, A. (2006). Climate change vulnerability and policy support. Society and Natural Resources, 19: 771–789
- Zahran, S., Brody, S.D., Highfield, W.E., & Vedlitz, A. (2008). Nonlinear Incentives, Plan Design, and Flood Mitigation: The Case of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Community Rating System.
- Zahran, S., Weiler, S., Brody, S.D., Lindell, M.K. & Highfield, W.E. (2009). Modeling national flood insurance policy holding at the county scale in Florida, 1999-2005. Ecological Economics, 68, 2627–2636.
Vulnerability
- Boruff, B.J., Emrich, C., & Cutter, S.L., (2005). Erosion hazard vulnerability of US coastal counties. Journal of Coastal Research, 21(5), 932–942.
- Brody, S.D., Zahran, S, Vedlitz, A., & Grover, H. (2008). Examining the Relationship between Physical Vulnerability and Perceptions of Global Climate Change in the U.S. Environment and Behavior 40(1): 72–95.
- Cutter, S.L., Boruff, B.J., & Shirley, W.L. (2003). Social vulnerability to environmental hazards. Social Science Quarterly, 84(1), 242–261.
- Peacock, W.G., Kunreuther, H., Hooke, W.H., Cutter, S.L., Chang, S.E., & Berke, P.R. (2008). Toward a Resiliency and Vulnerability Observatory Network: RAVON.
- Simpson, D. M. & Human, R. J. (2008) Large-scale vulnerability assessments for natural hazards. Natural Hazards. 47:143–155.
- Zahran S., Brody, S.D., Peacock W. G., Grover, H. & Vedlitz, A. (2008). Social vulnerability and flood casualties in Texas, 1997-2001. Disasters, 32(4): 537–560.
- Zahran, S., Brody, S.D., Peacock, W.G., Vedlitz, A., & Grover, H. (2008). Social vulnerability and the natural and built environment: A model of flood causalities in Texas. Disasters, 32(4): 537-560.
- Zhang, Y., Lindell, M.K. & Prater, C.S. (2009). Modeling and managing vulnerability of community businesses to environmental disasters. Disasters, 33(1), 38–57.
Resiliency and Sustainability
- Brody, S., Highfield, W., Peacock, W.G., & Gunn, J. 2011. The Influence of Development Intensity on Flood Damage along the Gulf of Mexico: Examining the Erosion of Resiliency. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 31(4):438-48.
- Brody, S.D., Grover H., Bernhardt S., Tang Z., Whitaker & Spencer C. (2006). A Multi-Criteria, Spatial Site Suitability Analysis for Oil and Gas Exploration in Texas State Coastal Waters. Environmental Management, 38(4): 597–617.
- Brody, S.D., Zahran S., Highfield W., Grover H., & Vedlitz A. (2008). Identifying the Impact of the Built Environment of Flood Damage in Texas. Disasters, 32(1): 1–18.
- Godschalk, D. R. (2003). Urban hazard mitigation: creating resilient cities. Natural Hazards Review, 4(3) 136–143.
- Mileti, D.S. (1999). Disasters by Design: A reassessment of natural hazards in the United States. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.
- Peacock, W.G., Brody, S.D., Seitz, W.A., Merrell, W.J., Vedlitz, A., Zahran, S., Harriss, R.C., & Stickney, R.R. (2010). Advancing the Resilience of Coastal Localities: Developing, Implementing and Sustaining the Use of Coastal Resiliency Indicators: A Final Report.
- Peacock, W.G., Van Zandt, S., Henry, D., Grover, H., & Highfield, W. Forthcoming. Social Vulnerability and Hurricane Ike: Using Social Vulnerability Mapping to Enhance Coastal Community Resiliency in Texas. Chapter 7 in Sever Storm Prediction, Impact, and Recovery on the Texas Gulf Coast. Edited by Phillip B. Bedient. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M Press.
Recovery
- Al-Nammari, F.M. & Lindell, M.K. (2009). Earthquake recovery of historic buildings: Exploring cost and time needs. Disasters, 33(3), 457–481.
- Deyle, R., Eadie, C., Schwab, J., Smith, R., & Topping, K. (1998). Planning for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction (pp. 483-484). Chicago, IL: APA Planning Advisory Committee.
- Olshanky, R.B., & Johnson, L.A. (2010). Clear as mud: planning for the rebuilding of New Orleans. Chicago, IL: American Planning Association Planner's Press.
- Peacock, W.G., Morrow, B., & Gladwin, H. (1997). Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity, gender and the sociology of disasters. London: Routledge.
- Zhang, Y. & Peacock W. (2010) Planning for recovery? Lessons learned from Hurricane Andrew. Journal of the American Planning Association, 76(1): 5–24.
Emergency Planning
- Chiu, Y.-C., Zheng, H., Villalobos, J. A., Peacock, W. G., & Henk, R. (2008). Evaluating Regional Contra-Flow and Phased Evacuation Strategies for Central Texas Using a Large-Scale Dynamic Traffic Simulation and Assignment Approach. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 5(1): 34 (1–27).
- Lindell, M.K. (2008). EMBLEM2: An empirically based large-scale evacuation time estimate model. Transportation Research Part A 42, 140–154.
- Lindell M.K., Prater, C.S., & Peacock, W.G. (2007). Organizational communication and decision making for hurricane emergencies Natural Hazards Review 8(August): 50-60.
- Lindell, M.K., Prater, C.S. & Perry, R.W. (2007). Introduction to Emergency Management. Hoboken NJ: Wiley.
- Lindell, M.K., Prater, C.S., & Perry, R.W. (2006). Fundamentals of Emergency Management. Washington, DC: FEMA.
- Perry, R.W. & Lindell, M.K. (2007). Emergency planning. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Natural Resource Management
- Brody, S.D., Highfield, W., Hyung-Cheal, R., & Weber, L. (2007). Examining the relationship between wetland alteration and watershed flooding in Texas and Florida. Natural Hazards, 40(2): 413-428.
- Brody, S.D. (2008). Ecosystem Planning in Florida solving regional problems through local decision-making. Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
- Ndubisi, F. (2002). Ecological Planning: A Historical and Comparative Synthesis Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
- Tierney, K.J., Lindell, M.K., & Perry, R.W. (2001). Facing the Unexpected: Disaster preparedness in the United States. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.