This step-by-step guide, prepared by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, and the Massachusetts Hazard Mitigation Team, is designed to help build community capability for addressing natural hazards in order to minimize future disaster losses, identify key mitigation activities, and to assist in securing funding for future hazard mitigation projects. The guidebook also encourages engaging the community and obtaining local input in the development of community-based plans.

This guide emphasizes the importance of planning for hazard mitigation, rather than just for recovery after a major storm, flood, or other natural disaster, citing four major benefits to creating a community plan that identifies actions to be undertaken now to keep communities from becoming disaster areas in the future:

• Reducing the cost of public and private damages;
• Reducing social, emotional, and economic disruption;
• Increasing access to funding sources for hazard mitigation projects; and
• Improving community ability to implement post-disaster recovery projects.

While designed for communities in Massachusetts, this guide offers widely applicable recommendations on hazard mitigation planning and community engagement.