Addressing Social Inequities in Flood Hazard Mitigation Planning and Disaster Recovery: A Case Study in Houston

Abstract

Every flood event reveals hidden disparities within cities in capacities to anticipate and recover from disasters. Studies have found that high socially vulnerable neighborhoods sustain more damage, have access to fewer recovery resources, and experience slower recovery. Climate change is likely to exacerbate these disparities. This dissertation first reviews the literature to develop a broad theory on the role of local land use planning in supporting socially-equitable hazard mitigation and climate adaptation initiatives. The theory focuses on 1. understanding legacies of structural discrimination that have historically disenfranchised socially vulnerable groups; 2. democratically engaging and understanding the needs of socially vulnerable groups (procedural equity); 3. targeting planning infrastructure and policies to reduce physical vulnerability to floods (distributional equity). This dissertation seeks to empirically analyze distributional and procedural inequities in flood hazard mitigation planning and disaster recovery. The study investigates two groups of neighborhoods in Houston as case studies: one is high in social vulnerability while the other is low. This dissertation asks two questions. First, how has the distribution of flood resilience policies changed in the networks of plans before and after Hurricane Harvey (distributional inequity)? Second, how has the quality of collaboration on flood recovery issues varied in the two neighborhoods and influenced the distribution of policies in plans between the two neighborhoods (procedural inequity)? The study uses a mixed methods natural experiment research design centered around Hurricane Harvey. Findings suggest that despite a historical flood event like Hurricane Harvey, the disparity in adaptive capacities has compounded. Disparity emerges from (a) an increasing gap in the degree of support for flood hazard mitigation in Houston’s network of plans (b) a disproportionate increase in growth and economic development pressure in high socially vulnerable neighborhoods after Hurricane Harvey and (c) inequities in the access to and power over the network of actors who influence disaster recovery and hazard mitigation planning. These results provide a critical foundation for future inquiry on how planning and policy decisions can address differential adaptive capacities and help proactively adapt to climate change.