2020-2021 Projects

Covid-19 Response

When the global pandemic swept into our community, the Policy Lab swung into action. Visit our COVID Resource Page for IPRE’s work in this area.

Electric Vehicle Charging Network

In the fall term of 2020, this project will work with the graduate students in the course Environmental Policy to investigate policies that will help further the development of a more comprehensive network of vehicle electrification charging stations in Lane County.

Riparian Restoration on McKenzie River

Starting in September 2020 a group of MPA students in the Capstone course commenced working on this project. Due to the recent Holiday Farm fire’s impact on McKenzie river residents, this project will investigate watershed restoration and post-fire recovery riparian policy. The purpose of this project is to promote post-wildfire redevelopment along the McKenzie River that:

  • Encourage resilient design and landscaping choices to mitigate the threats of future disasters.
  • Protect watershed health and recovery with wise land-use decisions.
  • Restore native riparian vegetation

Lane County Hazard Mitigation & COVID Recovery Implementation Strategic Planning

This MPA Capstone based project is funded in large part through a FEMA grant that is managed jointly by IPRE (Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience) and Lane County (Emergency Management).

This project builds off of last year’s project to develop the Lane Regional Resilience Collaborative (LRRC). The purpose of the LRRC is to link, leverage, and align government resources (e.g. county, city, special district, etc.) across Lane County using a whole community framework. The stated objective of the LRRC is to identify and implement hazard mitigation and other resilience informed risk reduction projects. This project will provide needed technical assistance and capacity. Specifically, the Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience at the University of Oregon will support Lane County’s development of an integrated hazard mitigation, resilience, and risk reduction implementation process.

Lane County’s Natural Hazard Mitigation and Emergency Operations plans identify multiple manmade and natural hazards. While these plans effectively document and assess the risks and vulnerabilities associated with the identified hazards, these plans do provide the county with effective post-event recovery strategies. Under HMA Part III Subsection E.1.3.1, this project seeks to integrate and align documented risk assessment and mitigation strategy information with Lane County’s Disaster Recovery and Resilience Strategy. This work will be linked with the recently formed Lane Regional Resilience Collaborative and will serve to ensure that risk assessment and mitigation strategy information contained in the Lane County NHMP is integrated with the County’s recovery and resilience strategy.

This project will (1) provide technical assistance and training to support the LRRC’s efforts to implement mitigation projects, and (2) develop a disaster recovery framework that leverages existing risk assessment and mitigation strategy information contained in Lane County’s NHMP.

 

Community Organizations Active In Disaster (COAD)

The Nonprofit Consultancy course will be working on a project in conjunction with a number of regional partners with this project—in particular the United Way. Nonprofit Consultancy is a course in the spring term at the UO, thus it will not fully commence until April 2021.

 

The project has three goals:

  1. Document Community Organizations Active In Disaster (COAD) assets and gaps that showed up in the response to the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire event.
  2. Summarize regional/national best practices for COADs, assess local capacity compared to best practices.
  3. Provide recommendations for preparing the Lane COAD for future disasters.

Key questions the project seeks to address:

  1. Based on the Holiday Farm Fire response, what are the key areas for the Lane COAD to focus on, to improve our response to the next disaster? What specific strategies or tactics should we be considering, in order to improve our collective response?
  2. What is the optimal relationship between local government emergency management and the COAD? How can we maximize coordination and integrate efforts, within the confines of the COAD’s role as a group of voluntary actors?
  3. What strategies should the COAD consider, to ensure that marginalized and vulnerable communities are prioritized in the deployment of COAD resources?

The project is expected to begin in April 2021, with some prep work during the winter term. Currently, the methodology/activities are expected to include the following:

  1. Conduct research on national COAD best practices, especially regarding training for members, communication in times of disaster, roles and expectations of member agencies/individuals.
  2. Conduct interviews with local individuals/agencies active in the Holiday Farm Fire response, including COAD member agencies, community volunteers, Lane County staff. Surface valuable roles that COAD played, where the gaps were, what is needed for a more effective activation in a future disaster.
  3. Review existing COAD resource inventory, determine where gaps exist and recommend recruitment strategies.
  4. Review existing COAD Emergency Operations Plan, especially communications plan and Incident Command Structure, recommend improvements based on identified gaps/shortcomings.
  5. Review existing COAD meeting schedule, structure and programs, recommend improvements for training or exercises to enhance member agency readiness for disaster response.

The student group working on this project will provide a written and oral report of findings in June 2021.