Assessing flood resilience through the plan quality evaluation: the city of Miami, Florida, USA

This study examines how effectively flood resilience principles are integrated into urban planning frameworks in Miami, Florida — a city facing increasing flood risks from climate change, sea-level rise, and urban development, which together make robust planning essential to community resilience. The analysis focuses on two key planning instruments: the Local Mitigation Strategy (LMS) and the Comprehensive Plan (CP). Using a plan-quality evaluation framework, the study assesses the extent to which each plan incorporates a fact base, goals and objectives, policies and strategies, inter-organizational coordination, and implementation mechanisms, with the aim of understanding how these complementary instruments contribute to flood resilience.

The findings reveal that both plans contribute to flood resilience planning but emphasize different dimensions of resilience. The LMS demonstrates stronger integration of risk assessment, coordination, and implementation components, while the CP provides a stronger strategic vision and policy framework for guiding future development. Overall, the LMS achieved a higher plan-quality score, suggesting a greater emphasis on the operational aspects of resilience planning. These results highlight the complementary roles of hazard mitigation planning and comprehensive planning in addressing flood risks, and point to an opportunity: greater integration between the two frameworks could strengthen resilience outcomes by linking long-term policy objectives with actionable implementation mechanisms. Together, these insights contribute to the broader understanding of flood resilience planning and offer practical guidance for planners and policymakers seeking to strengthen resilience to climate change, sea-level rise, and future flood hazards.