Navigating Diverse Agency Priorities in Emergency Management: A Framework for Hazard Mitigation
Abstract
Hazard mitigation planning requires disparate agencies to negotiate through the planning and implementation processes. These agencies must strategize, develop, and implement plans for addressing scenarios of natural and human-caused hazards. Competing perspectives exist in systems engineering at multiple levels of governance. This paper introduces a framework to understand and coordinate when one or more agencies have outlier perspectives of the priority ordering of initiatives in regional hazard mitigation. Each agency perspective is represented as a scenario that disrupts system order. The paper presents a mathematical framework with 40 initiatives, six ordering criteria, and eight scenarios. The method coordinates evidence and experience that are essential to negotiation of requirements among emergency managers in hazard mitigation planning in the postpandemic era.
Practical Applications
Unprecedented combinations of natural and human-caused stressors are challenging to plan for since the perspectives of participating agencies can differ significantly. The agencies that collaborate on emergency management include transportation, law enforcement, environment, prisons, parks and recreation, forestry, energy, and others. This paper facilitates negotiations among these various agencies in the hazard mitigation planning process by introducing a framework to understand and coordinate when one or more agencies have outlier perspectives of the priorities for investments in hazard mitigation. The application of the framework identifies where negotiation among the agencies is most needed in determining hazard mitigation priorities. This approach, grounded in principles of systems engineering and risk analysis, reduces cost overrun and schedule delay in the life cycle of emergency management.
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Data Availability Statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Some data containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions.
Acknowledgments
This effort was supported in part by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, Old Dominion University (ODU), Salter’s Creek Consulting, and the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Logistics Systems.
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Information
Published In
Natural Hazards Review
Volume 25 • Issue 4 • November 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 11, 2023
Accepted: May 29, 2024
Published online: Aug 22, 2024
Published in print: Nov 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Jan 22, 2025
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