Resilience Planning

The Safety Element is a required component of a city/county’s general plan that incorporates goals, policies, and action to minimize the risk of personal injury, loss of life, property damage, and environmental damage associated with natural and human-made hazards. California Senate Bill 379 requires counties and cities to identify in their Safety Elements how climate change will impact natural hazard risk for communities in the future. The County is working with local cities and jurisdictions to update their Safety Elements. Each Safety Element will identify policies and implementation measures to address the risks from climate change impacts in the participating communities.

A Local Hazard Mitigation Plan is a section of a city/county’s general plan that identifies and prioritizes mitigation actions to reduce the risk from natural and man-made disasters. In 2021 San Mateo County updated its Multijurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (MJLHMP), a cross-jurisdictional effort to reduce risk from natural and human-caused disasters, including climate change, flooding, drought, wildfire, landslides, severe weather, terrorism, cyber threats, pandemic, and other hazards. The updated plan was adopted on December 7, 2021.

The Sustainability Department led vulnerability assessment planning processes to support San Mateo County communities to prepare for sea level rise. Some of these included the 2021 South Coast Sea Level Rise Risk and Solutions study and the 2018 San Mateo County Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Assessment.