About PIRS™
The Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ is the product of a multi-year collaborative research and engagement project conducted by the HRRC and TX Target Communities at Texas A&M University in collaboration with the Center for Community Resilience and the Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).
The resilience of the built and natural environments is strongly influenced by the development and growth management guidance provided by a community’s network of plans, which often includes land use, hazard mitigation, and transportation plans, among others. These plans guide development, including in flood-prone areas. The ways these independent plans interact can significantly impact community vulnerability. A well-integrated network of plans can aid in building resilient communities and reducing losses from hazard events. However, few methodological tools exist to examine the level of integration among plans.
PIRS™, developed by a team of researchers at Texas A&M University’s Institute for Sustainable Communities led by Dr. Philip Berke, can be used to spatially evaluate the coordination of local plans and assess the degree to which they target areas most prone to hazards.
Since its inception, the PIRS™ has been applied in research and practice, and employed to evaluate hundreds of neighborhoods in over 19 cities around the world (Berke et al., 2018; Malecha et al., 2018; Yu et al., 2020).
PIRS™ is supported by the Department of Homeland Security’s Coastal Resilience Center at UNC.
PIRS™
In Research & Practice
The research team at Texas A&M University evaluated a geographically dispersed, and variously sized set of coastal communities (Washington, NC; Fort Lauderdale, FL; League City, TX; Boston, MA; Tampa, FL; Asbury Park, NJ). They analyzed each city’s network of plans, assigning scores to planning districts, and also evaluated physical and social vulnerability. Collectively, these efforts helped refine the tool and evaluation process. Then, over several months, the research team ‘translated’ the research methodology into a user-friendly guidebook for practitioners.
To validate the tool and its translation to practice, the research team invited subject matter experts to participate on an advisory board. The advisory board is composed of hazard planning practitioners from the newly formed Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Planning Division (HMDR) within the American Planning Association (APA).
After the scorecard guidebook was vetted by experts and practitioners, the team began recruiting flood-vulnerable cities as potential pilot communities to test the scorecard and guidebook process. Learn more about the Pilot Communities.
PIRS™ Guidebook
Team & Partners
Guidebook Authors
Dr. Matthew Malecha
Professional Research Experience Program Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
Jaimie Hicks Masterson, AICP
Director of Texas Target Communities
at Texas A&M University
Dr. Siyu Yu
Assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning; Core faculty with the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University
Dr. Philip Berke
Research Professor, Department of City & Regional Planning; Director, Center for Resilient Communities and the Environment, Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Principal Investigators
Philip Berke, Jaimie Hicks Masterson, Siyu Yu, and Matthew Malecha
Advisory Board Members
Allison Hardin, CFM: City of Myrtle Beach, Planner and Coastal Hazards Education Specialist
Barry Hokanson, AICP: PLN Associates, President of the American Planning Association Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Division (APA- HMDR)
Chad Berginnis, CFM: Association of State Floodplain Managers, Executive Director
Darrin Punchard, AICP, CFM: Punchard Consulting
Gavin Smith, Ph.D.: North Carolina State University, Professor; former Executive Director, Department of Homeland Security’s Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence at UNC-CH, Executive Director
Jennifer Ellison: City of Urbandale, Community Development Director
Matt Campbell: FEMA, National Coordinator for Community Recovery Planning and Capacity Building Recovery Support Function
Michele Steinberg: National Fire Protection Association, Wildfire Division Manager
Rich Roths: URS Corporation, Principal Planner
Partners
The Coastal Resilience Center
The Coastal Resilience Center, co-led by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, performs research and develops education programs to enhance the nation’s ability to safeguard populations, properties, and economies from coastal hazards. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security established the Center in 2008 in response to Hurricane Katrina. The Center’s purpose is to help build resiliency to natural hazards in coastal communities. It conducts research that can be translated to coastal communities and that informs state and local policy decisions.
The Institute for Sustainable Coastal Communities
The Institute for Sustainable Coastal Communities prepares coastal communities to absorb, adapt and respond to disturbances such as hazardous events, hurricanes, coastal storms and flooding. The institute acts as a living laboratory to attract and leverage research activities of multiple centers on Texas A&M campuses in College Station and Galveston, while connecting with coastal community leaders and stakeholders about their roles in creating a resilient community. Protecting people and coasts requires knowledge and power. The Institute for Sustainable Coastal Communities is delivering the power of research, teaching, and public outreach.
Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center
Texas A&M University’s Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center (HRRC) is an interdisciplinary research effort. Established in 1988, the HRRC was the first research center dedicated to vulnerability reduction and long-term recovery in the nation. Today, the HRRC is one of only two United Nations (UN-OCHA) Collaborative Centers in the world. The HRRC serves OCHA as a research and consultant agency with particular emphasis on national disaster plans and their implications for future development. HRRC faculty, staff and students have generated research at the forefront of disaster planning. HRRC researchers focus on hazard analysis, emergency preparedness and response, disaster recovery and hazard mitigation. HRRC staff, faculty fellows and affiliates come from across Texas A&M University and other institutions. They include architects, planners, sociologists, policy analysts, economists, landscape architects and engineers. Students from across Texas A&M at all levels — Ph.D., masters, and undergraduate — conduct research with center faculty and staff.
Pilot Communities
Norfolk, Virginia
The City of Norfolk, VA, exposed to coastal flooding and sea-level rise, has a population of 250,000. Norfolk’s planning staff and emergency management office decided to use the resilience scorecard because the City seeks to be a “model community on resilience”,and recently completed the Vision 2100 Plan (which incorporates sea-level rise at 2100).
Core Team:
- George Homewood, FIACP, CFM- Director of City Planning
- Paula Shea, AICP: Principal Planner
- Jeremy Sharp, AICP: Principal Planner
- Steven Pyle- Assistant Emergency Manager
- Matt Staley- GIS Coordinator
- Katerina Oskarsson, Deputy to the Chief Resilience Officer of 100RC
League City, Texas
League City, TX, exposed to inland and coastal flooding along with sea level rise, has a population of 88,000. League City, a politically conservative community, sought approval to complete the resilience scorecard from city staff, city council members, the planning and zoning commission and the emergency management office. A comprehensive plan update and assessment of all development regulations was the original impetus for the project in 2016.
Core Team:
- Mark Linenschmidt, AICP- Senior Planner
- Korrie Becht- Long Range Senior Planner
- Kris Carpenter- Planning Manager
- Ryan Edghill- Emergency Management Coordinator
- Chanel Jones- Assistant Emergency Management Coordinator
Nashua, New Hampshire
Nashua, NH, exposed to inland flooding among other hazards, has a population of 88,000. The City launched the Resilient Nashua Initiative in 2017 to holistically understand hazard vulnerabilities. By focusing on the hazard mitigation plan update, the City gathered together a more than 50 member steering committee from across departments, agencies, nonprofits, and other community stakeholders. The City applied for a number of grants for the larger effort including a National League of Cities grant to complete the resilience scorecard in conjunction with the Community Resilience Planning Guide from the National Institute of Science and Technology.
Core Team:
- Justin Kates, Director of Emergency Management
- Anna McGinty, Chief Resilience Officer
- Angelo Marino, GIS Manager
- Pamela Andruskevich, GISAnalyst
- Jacqueline Cardoza, Planning Consultant
Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Coastal Resilience Center, under Award Number 00313690. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
We are grateful to Jaekyung Lee, Jeewasmi Thapa, and Malini Roy for their assistance in plan coding, mapping, design, and illustration.
