Hazard Mitigation and Capacity in Utah Census Places

This dataset contains important categories (per an extensive literature review) in relation to vulnerability to water hazards within Utah at the Census Place level (i.e. cities). Although social and physical vulnerability to water hazards (i.e. flooding) data has been collected extensively in many coastal areas, this is a costly problem in Utah and many other non-coastal regions. The variables shown here are categorized by type and collection method. 1. General data is shown for all Census Places in Utah including County, Geocode, and Total Population. These are taken from the 2010 Census. 2. Literature suggests that there are various approaches which local governments take to mitigate the impacts of flood events. Indicators of these approaches are captured in the section entitled Web Survey. A web survey was conducted of each and every census place in Utah. The data includes evaluations of content including water hazard education, land use restrictions described in the code, freeboard requirements, and emergency operations plan implementations. 3. Information about the local government including their planning and building inspector staff was collected using a phone survey along with emails and website investigations. 4. FEMA data was consolidated from FEMA's website showing census places with current insurance premium discounts achieved by demonstrating compliance with certain federal requirements. It also includes data on policies and losses. 5. A social vulnerability index was created by our team for this project and details can be found here: http://repository.iutahepscor.org/dataset/social-vulnerability-at-the-census-place-level. This dataset includes summary findings from the SoVI index. 6. As housing is recognized in the literature as a contributer to natural hazard vulnerability, important housing statistics were defined and created from Census data. These include housing age, median value, and renter occupied statistics. A standardized rating of building code effectiveness is also included from a recent Utah Hazard Mitigation Report. 7. Event data is summarized for number of events and estimated monetary damages from another of our team's datasets found here: http://repository.iutahepscor.org/dataset/noaa-storm-events. This NOAA dataset helps us understand the nature of past experience and physical exposure to water hazards. 8. As this dataset is focused on water hazard exposure, two measurements were calculated for each census place reflecting the percentage area of the city included in the defined special flood hazard area.

Together these data paint a picture of Utah's vulnerabilities to flood hazards and potential exposure to other natural hazard events. County level statistics were also collected and add insight at that spatial scale. they can be found here: http://repository.iutahepscor.org/dataset/utah-s-counties-sensitivity-to-water-hazards. The variables are different as prescribed in the readme file there.

Further details of the data collection methods can be found in the data dictionary within the spreadsheet workbook or in the ReadMe file included as a resource here.