Stormwater Capital Improvement Planning: A Framework for Project Identification and Prioritization for Pluvial Flood Mitigation

More frequent and disruptive non‐disaster declared pluvial flooding1 events have brought to the forefront a heightened awareness of climate change and the ever‐widening gap between infrastructural needs, community capacity, and the availability of resources. Environmental Justice (EJ) as well as hazards and resilience literature has identified capacity limitations of underserved and communities of color to cope, adapt and recover from pluvial flooding events attributed to climate change. EJ advocates have long recognized the disproportional impact of climate change on the underserved and communities of color and have emphasized the principles of unequal exposure, the importance of community voice, and capacity building as tools for increasing the resilience of this population. To improve the technocratic system that identifies prioritizes and determines the distribution of urban drainage infrastructure fundamental changes are needed. Provisions that reflect society's social justice views and climate change awareness should promote 1) ownership of climate adaptation and infrastructural needs that benefit all populations; 2) increased resilience and the empowerment of communities to petition for climate adaptation and infrastructural needs; 3) increase the coping, adaptation and recovery capacity of underserved and communities of color; 4) provide more transparency to the allocation of stormwater provisions. Using the principles of EJ and adaptive resilience as underpinnings, this article articulates a conceptual framework for a new multi‐dimensional component‐level resilience rating and indexing system. Called the Urban Drainage Resilience Index System (UDRIS), this conceptual framework outlines a methodology meeting two objectives. The first objective is to quantify the level of resilience contained within urban drainage infrastructure and the population impacted by subsequent pluvial flooding. The second objective is to formulate a risk communication tool that empowers and serves as a mechanism for the underserved and communities of color. This tool allows stakeholders to engage in the identification and prioritization of urban drainage infrastructural needs that may anticipate, prepare, and reduce the harms of pluvial flooding events. In addition to the UDRIS primer, this article provides insight into the application and integration of UDRIS into the existing decision‐making and planning frameworks such as stormwater capital improvements planning, comprehensive planning, and Hazard Mitigation planning. The integration of UDRIS into these frameworks will strengthen a culture of hazard preparedness amongst government officials, planners, engineers, and the public.