Plan integration and plan quality: combining assessment tools to align local infrastructure priorities to reduce hazard vulnerability

Abstract

Hazard vulnerability is a characteristic of disaster risks from natural hazards, worsening climate challenges, complex geopolitical governance dynamics, and local development conditions. Comprehensive planning documents often articulate a community’s infrastructure strategies, policies, and capital improvement investments, and are pivotal for sustainable development of cities. This article introduces a new approach for an evidence-based enhanced preparatory technique for comprehensive plans, called Plan I.Q. The framework brings together two recent planning evaluation tools, which use a combination of qualitative assessment and spatial analysis in GIS to develop high-quality integrated plans. The case study presents results from applying the framework during the development of a new comprehensive plan for the City of Rockport in Texas, which incurred heavy damages from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Results show improvements to plan quality and plan integration across the community’s network of plans, increasing the quantity and quality of infrastructure policies to reduce hazard vulnerabilities.