Buildings in any geographic location are subject to a wide variety of natural phenomena such as windstorms, floods, earthquakes, and other hazards. While the occurrence of these incidents cannot be precisely predicted, their impacts are well understood and can be managed effectively through a comprehensive program of hazard mitigation planning.
Ongoing changes in climate patterns around the world may alter the behavior of hydrometeorological phenomena within our lifetimes. The frequency and severity of floods, storms, droughts, and other weather-related disasters is expected to increase, as is the risk from associated changes in the manifestation of other hazards such as wildland fires. Only after the overall risk is fully understood should mitigation measures be identified, prioritized, and implemented.
Basic principles underlying this process include:. Hazard mitigation is at the core of disaster resistance and supports achieving resilience. Presidential Policy Directive PPD 8 PPD-8 defines resilience as "the ability to adapt to changing conditions and withstand and rapidly recover from disruption due to emergencies.
Unsustainable development also is one of the major factors in the rising costs of natural disasters. Many mitigation design strategies and technologies serve double duty, by not only preventing or reducing disaster losses but serving the broader goal of long-term community sustainability. For example, land use regulations prohibiting development in flood-prone areas may also help preserve the natural and beneficial functions of floodplains.
Mitigation serves to attenuate the cascading effects where hazard events degrade an asset, or community of assets, followed by such degradations propagating throughout the asset, or community of assets. During this propagation of degradations, additional hazards might be created, thus further increasing the rate and magnitude of functional degradations of assets. Unanticipated interactions from concurrent or sequential multi-hazard events dependent or independent; natural, man-made or accidental may result in a compounded impact with cascading effects and previously unconsidered consequences.
