Tribes of Washington State: factors influencing presence and quality of climate adaptation and hazard mitigation plans

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2019Climate adaptation and hazard mitigation planning is becoming increasingly necessary for tribes across the United States. In Washington, tribes span a gradient of ecosystems all with their own climate challenges. This study analyzes the factors that influence both the presence and quality of both climate adaptation and hazard mitigation plans of Washington tribes. Factors influencing presence and quality are internal capacity, external capacity, and exposure (Birkland 2015, Dolšak and Prakash 2018, Glavovic and Smith 2014). Influencing factor (independent variable) data was gathered from publicly available information and existing plans that are publicly available were then evaluated based on a set of criteria from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for process scores and the University of Oregon Pacific Northwest Tribal Climate Change Network for content scores. The average process score for climate adaptation plans was 19.4 and 22.0 for hazard mitigation plans, out of a total 30 points. The average content score for climate adaptation plans was 16.0 and 16.8 for hazard mitigation plans, out of a total 28 points. A difference of means was calculated at the 0.05 significance level to determine the relationship between each independent variable and plan presence and the null hypothesis failed to be rejected for each independent variable. Then, a linear regression was utilized to estimate regression coefficients between independent variables and plan process score and plan content score. It was found that external capacity has an estimated regression coefficient of -2.8 and a p-value of 0.01 and the number of departments has an estimated regression coefficient of 3.6 points and a p-value of 0.06. No other regression coefficients were significant at 0.10 or higher levels