Emergency Management and Public Health
Emergency Management and Public Health
Extreme weather events are placing growing pressure on local emergency management, planning, and public health systems. We’re partnering with emergency managers, hazard mitigation planners, and public health officials to understand the evolving risks in their communities and identify opportunities to improve preparedness capacity. By combining local insights with climate science and forecasting tools, we aim to support more proactive planning and risk reduction strategies across Wisconsin’s rural regions.
Programs
Hazard Mitigation Plan Support
Hazard mitigation planning helps communities reduce long-term risks from natural hazards like floods, droughts, and extreme heat. These plans are essential for protecting lives, property, and infrastructure—and have been required for eligibility for FEMA funding programs.
Our project supports rural communities across Wisconsin in updating their hazard mitigation plans with improved weather and climate data, decision-support tools, and local engagement. By working with the Wisconsin State Climatology Office, Wisconet, and UW–Madison researchers, we can offer high-resolution environmental data, predictive tools, and climate insights tailored to each county.
Geodesign
Geodesign is a collaborative, data-driven planning approach that integrates geographic information systems (GIS), stakeholder input, and design principles that can be used to develop and evaluate spatial solutions that reduce risks from natural hazards. Experts at UW-Madison can work with emergency managers, hazard planners, and others seeking to evaluate solutions for mitigating natural hazards to design scenarios and interpret their effect on hazard impacts. Geodesign has applications in the development of green infrastructure for stormwater management or the development of wind screens to mitigate snow drifts in critical transportation corridors.
Engage with Us
If you are an emergency manager, planner, or public health official and would like to work with our project team to understand extreme weather impacts in your community, contact Jackson Parr, Climate Hazards Planning Educator.