Natural Hazard Mitigation in Urban Planning: A Canadian Case Study

With a changing climate and more frequent extreme weather events, natural hazards can have significant consequences and impacts on a local community. If a local government hasn’t properly prepared for a natural hazard’s impact, then the damage and devastation to a community can be quite severe. A natural hazard or disaster can have serious social, economic and environmental effects on a region. With the advent of the community and disaster planning profession, many local governments have been researching and implementing hazard related land use planning techniques. However, more recently community planners and disaster planners have been working more collaboratively, and have begun to integrate their two professions. Local communities interested in keeping their residents and assets safe and secure in the face of natural hazard risks often face challenges in properly communicating appropriate and adequate information highlighted by their community and disaster planners to their constituents and local stakeholders. Local governments and decison-makers have become accustomed to disseminating information to the public and have begun to adapt this strategy to the area of natural hazard planning. Of course, important considerations include, what are the best ways to communicate natural hazard planning? And, how available and accessible is natural hazard planning information to a local community? To answer these questions, the District of Maple Ridge, a community in the Metro Vancouver region of B.C. has been selected for a natural hazard planning and communication analysis. By starting with a community’s Official Community Plan (OCP), the research is hoping to highlight the areas and types of natural hazards which are not being properly communicated to residents. If residents are missing important aspects of hazard related information, the community will not be as resilient and secure in the face of a natural disaster.Applied Science, Faculty ofCommunity and Regional Planning (SCARP), School ofUnreviewedGraduat