To study how well disaster management is integrated into state preservation plans (and vice-versa), Rumbach and his colleague Douglas Appler, a professor of historic preservation at University of Kentucky, analyzed the historic-preservation and hazard-mitigation plans of all 50 states. These documents, which are updated every five years or so, lay out goals and strategies to help guide local governments and organizations in times of crisis. The results were published this week in the Journal of the American Planning Association.

In the first set of documents, on preservation, the researchers sought out words like “emergency,” “disaster,” and “hazard.” In the second, they looked to see if historic preservation was explicitly discussed, and whether a representative from the preservation department was included in the disaster-planning process.

They found that two-thirds of states explicitly mentioned emergency preparedness in their preservation plans, and 25 states included specific policies, initiatives, and plan objectives. But 60 percent of all states lack specific preservation strategies in their hazard-mitigation plans. And only 13 states included specific goals and strategies that mentioned protecting historic resources.

Yet the interests of historic preservationists and disaster planners do overlap. Protecting historic resources—structures, sites, and landscapes that have been nationally registered—are important for disaster resilience, Rumbach tells CityLab. “Not only are they important for community identity, and for people’s sense of belonging, and why they value their communities, but also they’re often very important for local economies.” (New Orleans, famous for its historic attractions, drew more than 9.5 million tourists in 2014 and added $6.8 billion to its local economy, for example.)

Although local communities may have their own preservation and disaster-mitigation plans, Appler says it’s still important for states to have both in place. “The state is a guidance document, identifying areas that should be of concern or special focus for local plans,” he says. “Then [the local agencies] could develop guidance for people who live in historic districts—what you can do to prevent damage to your house in the case of flooding, and who they should contact.”

Rumbach adds that states can be particularly helpful in small cities where the local communities may not necessarily have the capacity to plan for natural disasters themselves.

Using publicly available spatial data, the researchers also mapped out historic sites that were vulnerable to flooding in three states: Kentucky, Florida, and Colorado. They found that 15 percent of the 3,380 historic sites listed for Kentucky are located in the state’s 100-year or 500-year floodplain, meaning the area has either a 1 percent or 0.2 percent chance, respectively, of being flooded on any given year. Roughly a quarter of the 1,700 sites in Florida are found inside 100-year and 500-year floodplains.