Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS)

Summary

The Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS) method assists local practitioners to assess the degree to which networks of local plans target geographic areas most prone to hazards and spatially evaluate the coordination of local plans. The application of PIRS™ in multiple communities across the country generated a guidebook and training curriculum, which was recently expanded to include multiple hazards.

In Years 1-8, the project team developed, tested, and engaged communities and practitioners on the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS™) to address this problem.

Year 9 included the expansion of the PIRS™ to include extreme heat and wildfire hazards and development of a method for evaluating a community’s network of plans through a multi-hazards lens, which helps reveal additional complexities, such as policies that reduce vulnerability for one type of hazard but may exacerbate it for another (e.g. adding shade trees to mitigate heat may exacerbate wildfire risk by increasing potential firebrands) and policies that reduce multiple hazards (e.g. clustering development reduces encroachment on flood-prone and fire-prone areas). This enables the PIRS™ to reach and help a broader set of potential users, including communities with relatively low flooding risk. Also in Year 9, the American Planning Association’s (APA) eLearn platform and the PIRS™ Hub website were updated to reflect the inclusion of additional hazards and the multi-hazard approach, and we pursued the incorporation of PIRS™ into FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Community Rating System (CRS) process and other programs to incentivize additional use of the tool in communities across the country.

In Year 10, we will test the recently updated PIRS™ for Multi-Hazards methodology in collaboration with two hazard-prone communities; will expand federal partnerships to further the effective incorporation of PIRS™ into planning guidance and processes for local governments; and will explore opportunities to utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to improve the accessibility of PIRS™ and increase community uptake.

The work proposed for Year 10 will be a joint effort among personnel at Texas A&M University (TAMU), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), and APA.