Climate resiliency: A unique multi-hazard mitigation approach

Abstract

Baltimore’s unique combination of shocks and stresses cuts across social, economic and environmental factors. Like many other post-industrial cities, over the past several decades, Baltimore has experienced a decline in its population — resulting in a lower tax base. These trends have had deleterious effects on the city’s ability to attend to much needed infrastructure improvements and human and social services. In addition to considerable social and economic issues, the city has begun to experience negative impacts due to climate change. The compounding nature of these trends has put Baltimore, like other post-industrial cities, in the position of having to do more with fewer available resources. Rather than wait for disaster to strike, Baltimore took a proactive approach to planning for shocks and stresses by determining unique ways to pre-emptively plan for and adapt to effects from climate change and incorporating these into the City’s All Hazard Mitigation Plan. Since adopting the plan in 2013, Baltimore has been moving forward with various projects aimed at improving systems, enhancing adaptive capacity and building a more resilient and sustainable city. This paper describes the basis for the city’s approach and offers a portrait of its efforts in order to broaden foundational knowledge of the emerging ways that cities are recasting the role of planning in light of unprecedented circumstances that demand complex solutions that draw on few resources.