Natural Hazards Mitigation Guidebook: A Community Guide
Available for Download

Natural Hazards Mitigation Planning Guide (Adobe Acrobat)
Natural Hazards Mitigation Planning Guide Appendices (Adobe Acrobat)

This step-by-step guidebook, Natural Hazards Mitigation Planning: A Community Guide, was developed for use by local governments and citizens groups to prepare a streamlined, cost-efficient multiple natural hazards mitigation plan per new federal regulations under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. Use of this guidebook will help cities and towns identify their own multiple hazard risks as well as identify activities which can be implemented before the next natural disaster.

The resulting local natural hazards mitigation plan will improve a community's competitiveness for federal grant programs, especially the post-disaster Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) as well as the pre-disaster Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA). Both the FMA program and HMGP (more information on these programs is found throughout this website) are administered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts through the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) .

In addition to helping Massachusetts communities become eligible for certain grant programs, this guidebook can help communities obtain credit under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Community Rating System, or CRS. The CRS provides credits in the form of reduced flood insurance premiums for policy holders in communities performed floodplain management activities beyond NFIP minimum standards.

For a hard copy of this guidebook or for more information on the new planning requirements under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, the NFIP and CRS, contact the Massachusetts Flood Hazard Management Program (FHMP) at 617-626-1250, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

For additional planning information and other hazard mitigation planning guidebooks, go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's site at www.fema.gov and do a search for "planning."