Stakeholder compound flood hazard communication and decision making in Mobile, AL

Abstract

Coastal communities along the United States Gulf Coast experience elevated vulnerability to compound flooding from hurricane and other flood events. Effective mitigation of compound flood hazards is essential to prevent harm to coastal residents and infrastructure, which can be difficult for cities facing increased coastal hazard risk intensity alongside rapidly increasing populations and development. It is critical for these cities to identify successful strategies employed by other coastal communities so that they can apply them to their own mitigation projects and plans. In this study, we construct a framework for compound flooding preparation, mitigation, and recovery from focus groups including public and private expert stakeholders involved in coastal hazard mitigation and recovery. The focus groups identified effective communication, planning, and management of the public as the three main responsibilities that coastal expert stakeholders are tasked with to ensure successful flood hazard mitigation. In addition, notable challenges were identified that should be considered in the event of a major coastal hazard event. This study includes limitations to the variety of stakeholders involved, as municipal planners and elected officials in the study area were not able to be recruited for the focus groups. In addition, the findings are highly contextualized by the geographic location of the focus group participants in Mobile, AL. Nonetheless, this framework can be applied in other coastal communities to improve communication and collaboration and aid in the development of new plans for communities at risk for compound flooding along the US Gulf Coast in the future.