Natural hazard mitigation in Southern California

hazard mitigation the ideal planning system is one with full partnerships among different levels
of government, local institutions and private organizations, and with a strong regulatory basis
instead of an incentive based approach (Berke 1994).

Pearce (2003), Reddy (2000) and Cutter (2005) all argue that natural hazard mitigation
planning should consist of a bottom-up approach, combined with ample attention for local
interests and public participation. A higher level regulatory top-down policy can be necessary
to ensure hazard mitigation efforts, but the local planning process should be bottom-up to fully
allow local interests to dominate. A comprehensive plan that includes disaster management
planning and is realized with a public participation process has the highest probability of
mitigating natural hazards in an effective way (Pearce 2003). According to Pearce (2003), the
most important task of local officials is to design a planning process in which those aspects are
combined. Public participation and local consensus building are recognized as an important
factor in the succes of mitigation programs. It is important to realize that before people can
participate in the hazard mitigation planning process, hazard awareness is a prerequisite (Brody
2003). The willingness of people to participate depends on their knowledge and on the scale of
the decisions to be made. This willingness increases when plans are spatially split up into
small-scale neighboorhood plans. The participation techniques applied should therefore also be
neighboorhood based (Godschalk e.a. 1999).

The discussion of natural hazard mitigation issues should begin early in the planning process.
A risk assessment can never be absent because it forms the basis of all mitigation decisions.
Extensive research of many natural hazard mitigation projects by FEMA (1997) provides
evidence that mitigation is less expensive when discussed early in the planning process. Once a
decision has been made on for example the siting of certain land uses, adapting land in order to
hazard-proof them if necessary can be costly, whilst consideration of the hazards in an earlier
stage might have appointed a different land use to the regarding area. When making decisions
on land use and new developments, all costs and benefits of the alternatives should therefore be
taken into account, including costs of mitigation and expected damage (FEMA 1997,
Olshansky 2001). Research by Mechler (2003) indicates that cost-benefit-analysis and other
evaluation methods are used insufficiently in natural hazard mitigation issues, leading to an
inefficient allocation of resources. Use of these methods significantly improves the allocation
of resources and decreases potential natural hazard losses (Mechler 2003).

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