This research summary draws on insights generated by America’s Rural Future: Brookings-AEI Commission on U.S. Rural Prosperity.
Executive summary
As climate-related risks intensify, rural America is disproportionately exposed to the economic and social consequences of natural disasters. Many rural communities face structural vulnerabilities that complicate disaster planning and recovery, including aging infrastructure, long distances to emergency services, limited housing supply, and less administrative capacity to access and manage recovery resources. These constraints make costly disasters consequential for long-term rural prosperity. Current attention to reforming federal disaster assistance creates an opportunity to bring rural concerns to the foreground and ensure rural realities are reflected in effective and sustainable disaster policy.
The symposium examined the federal disaster system across the full continuum, including mitigation, preparedness, and resilience in addition to immediate response and long-term recovery, which often garner the most attention. The opening session considered how disaster exposure, vulnerability, organizational capacity, climate risk, and insurance are measured, and whether those measures reflect the diversity of rural conditions. A second session examined federal policy, the changing role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the unresolved distribution of responsibilities among federal, state, and local governments. The third discussion explored investments, institutions, partnerships, and local relationships that can help rural communities strengthen long-term resilience. Across the sessions, participants repeatedly noted that making information and funding available is not the same as having the capacity or incentives to use these resources.
A review of disaster risk in rural America exposed the limits of existing measures. Disasters affect people and places differently, and factors such as social vulnerability and local government capacity shape communities’ ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters, including their ability to invest in mitigation. Participants considered how measures such as the Social Vulnerability Index and Rural Capacity Index can help illustrate these differences and give a fuller picture of disaster risk and resilience. Participants said that no single measure captures disaster exposure across every rural community. In Glendive, Montana, decades of federal studies documented a severe flood risk without, until 2025, producing a funded solution, illustrating why measuring risk does not necessarily lead to resilience.
The discussion identified local capacity as a key determinant for evaluating risk exposure, with constraints on staff time, fiscal resources, project development, and coordination shaping how well a community can prepare for and respond to disasters. Turning to insurance and climate models responsible for communicating these risks, participants agreed that models should be fit for purpose and transparent about uncertainty but did not resolve how insurance should account for geographic specificity, data used for pricing, affordability concerns, or how technical risk information should be communicated to policyholders and policymakers.
The second session focused on federal disaster policy and the future of FEMA. The nation’s disaster system spans several federal programs, each operating under separate authorities, providing funding at different stages of disaster assistance—preparedness, response, and recovery—and distributing funds on different timelines. Declaration thresholds and damage assessments can also understate the cost of disasters in rural communities. Funding remains largely reactive rather than preventive, making it difficult for communities to invest in mitigation and preparedness efforts to reduce future disaster costs.
Recent proposals for FEMA reform emphasize shifting responsibility toward states, reducing declarations and federal spending, and changing declaration criteria. The discussion focused on how the federal government could balance its role as a backstop with a more active role in mitigation. While participants agreed that building state capacity to respond to disasters would be a worthwhile goal, they argued that the FEMA Review Council’s recommendations do not say where disaster assistance funding would come from in the absence of federal support, as costs from disasters are often prohibitively expensive for state and local governments. Participants broadly supported simpler, faster, and more consistent delivery of federal disaster aid. Differences arose over which reforms require congressional action (including amendments to the Stafford Act), which can be made administratively, and how to balance flexibility with legitimate fiduciary safeguards.
The final session examined how long-term resilience is built in practice. Recovery and mitigation planning is not a discrete project; it involves building resilience across housing, infrastructure, land management, and more. The social capital needed for this planning in rural communities is often informal and hard to build through standalone projects, so participants advocated for the creation of long-term recovery groups and related networks that can remain in place, even after disasters, so communities retain the networks and knowledge needed for long-term resilience. The discussion also considered how greater representation of local emergency managers in debates over disaster assistance reform could ensure that the specific conditions of rural communities are accounted for. Participants also noted that rural communities often possess resources and assets to improve disaster resilience, but do not know what first steps to take, or prioritize other concerns because the political and policy incentives to focus on disaster mitigation are low.
Across the symposium, a recurring theme was that many vulnerable rural communities have limited capacity for disaster resilience, making them less able to compete for mitigation funding and more vulnerable to the next disaster. Participants argued that breaking this cycle requires moving beyond reactive, project-based assistance toward sustained support for the staffing, coordination, and institutional capacity communities need to build resilience. Important questions remain about how to measure vulnerability, price and communicate risk fairly, reform federal disaster assistance, and help rural communities move from identifying disaster risks to implementing solutions.
Key insights
Participants highlighted the following as foundational elements for evaluating and improving disaster assistance in rural areas:
- Disaster reform must preserve the federal role in providing financial resources to address severe local losses while also advancing state and local resilience.
- Federal disaster policy remains predominantly reactive. Disaster reforms would benefit from investments that strengthen preparedness and mitigation and build durable local capacity, taking rural constraints and characteristics into account.
- Rural disaster risk cannot be captured by a single measure: Separate measures of exposure, social vulnerability, and organizational capacity, along with consistent data indicators, are needed to measure preparedness and track progress.
- Identifying risk is not the same as having the capacity to address it. Rural communities are often aware of their exposure to disasters but lack the resources to prepare for or respond to them.
- Competitive programs for disaster preparedness, mitigation, and building disaster resilience often favor jurisdictions with existing staff and resources, leaving higher-risk, low-capacity communities with limited support, suggesting that noncompetitive assistance could better serve them.
- Insurance pricing can have far-reaching implications for the affordability of living in disaster-prone rural communities. Pricing should accurately convey risk without disproportionately punishing rural residents living in disaster-prone areas.
- Rural communities with limited or at-risk housing supply are especially vulnerable after a disaster. When residents cannot find local housing, they may be forced to leave, thereby weakening the local tax base, workforce, and human capital needed to recover.
- Rural communities rely heavily on social capital and local organizations to sustain recovery efforts. Supporting long-term recovery groups between disasters helps preserve the resilience needed to prepare for and respond to future events more effectively.
- Disaster reforms should incorporate local emergency managers’ experience, since they see firsthand where current disaster assistance systems work and where they fail.
- Outside organizations and extension systems can strengthen rural resilience when they reinforce local capacity and invest in the leaders and institutions doing work on the ground.
Ongoing debates and research priorities
Symposium participants reached broad agreement on the insights above, but several tensions remain unresolved.
- Measuring rural disaster resilience
Issue: A recurring question was how resilience should be defined and measured to improve rural disaster policy. Participants described the county-level baseline resilience indicators for communities spanning six capital domains—human well-being and cultural, economic and financial, infrastructure and housing, institutional and governance, community capital, and environmental. It remains unclear how these six domains should be measured, weighed against one another, and translated into resilience strategies. Another unresolved question was whether a single standardized index can capture these varied indicators without obscuring local conditions and changes over time.
Research: Given the inherent differences in exposure and vulnerability within and between rural communities, what measures can best help policymakers track rural disaster resilience? Should these six domains be weighted or prioritized differently? How can a framework enable comparisons across rural communities while accounting for local conditions and change over time?
- Insurance pricing and risk communication
Issue: Participants debated how disaster risk should be measured and reflected in insurance pricing for at-risk rural communities. Insurance pricing can communicate risk, especially in rural communities in disaster-prone areas, but participants did not resolve how geographically specific premiums should be, whether forward-looking climate projections have inflated near-term risk estimates, how to weigh historical variability, or how to address affordability and financing. As risk models and insurance markets continue to evolve, the challenge is to convey risk accurately without making coverage unaffordable for rural households unable to retrofit or relocate.
Research: How can insurance data and pricing better serve rural policyholders? How should insurance risk premiums be calculated, and at what geographic scale should premiums be set? How should pricing balance historical variability and forward-looking projections? How can this information be used in a way that does not make living in rural communities prohibitively expensive?
- Preserving the federal role in disaster assistance
Issue: State and local governments rely on the federal government when the financial impact of disasters outstrips their financial capabilities, so proposals to reduce federal funding and shift financial responsibility for recovery to state and local governments drew concern from participants. The challenge is not that state and local governments, including rural communities, lack the leadership capacity to lead recovery efforts, but that they need access to sufficient, predictable, and flexible funding to meet their needs. Strengthening state leadership and capacity to take on a greater role in recovery is worthwhile, but it must be balanced with adequate federal resources to address immediate humanitarian needs as well as build the resilience and preparedness to mitigate future effects. These issues raise the question of how to best strengthen state and local leadership, provide resources and incentives for mitigation and preparedness, while preserving the federal government’s role as a backstop when disasters exceed state and local resources.
Research: How should the federal government balance providing adequate resources when disasters exceed state and local capacity with creating incentives and support for state and local governments to invest in preparedness, mitigation, and long-term resilience?
- Scope of disaster reform
Issue: Participants broadly agreed that disaster assistance should be delivered more quickly, consistently, and with fewer administrative burdens, since some rural communities currently wait years to receive federal reimbursement for eligible costs incurred during disasters. However, perspectives differed over which reforms require congressional action, and which changes FEMA can pursue under its existing authority without new legislation. Some said that because Congress establishes FEMA’s statutory responsibilities and appropriates disaster funding, major changes to the declaration process, funding structure, or the Stafford Act would require legislation or appropriations. Alternatively, others proposed that FEMA already has the authority to implement some of these reforms without new legislation, suggesting that these administrative reforms can begin within the agency. The Review Council’s own report states a preference for legislative action, and the Congressional Research Service (CRS) notes that executive action could carry out several recommendations, including new criteria for major disaster declarations; the bipartisan Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act (H.R. 4669) is the main congressional vehicle.
Research: Which disaster-assistance reforms can and should FEMA pursue under its existing authority to lessen administrative burdens for rural communities and speed the reimbursement process, and which structural or funding changes require congressional action through amendments to the Stafford Act, other legislation, or appropriations? What institutional barriers limit FEMA’s use of the flexibility it already possesses?
- Investments that build durable implementation capacity
Issue: Questions arose over which investments in capacity and coordination most effectively strengthen rural communities’ ability to build durable disaster resilience. Under the current federal disaster-assistance system, funding is often made available only after a disaster has occurred. The limited mitigation and preparedness programs that exist are primarily awarded on a competitive basis, often excluding low-capacity, high-risk rural communities. While participants agreed that part of the solution lies in shifting from a project-based approach to disaster assistance toward more sustained, place-based investments, it remains unclear which investments are most effective for rural communities to build the local capacity needed to prepare for and respond to disasters.
Research: What kinds of investments in disaster mitigation, preparedness, and planning are best for building capacity and reducing the long-term costs of disasters? How can assistance be offered so that lower-capacity communities can access and use funding?
- Local commitment and community agency
Issue: Participants debated whether capacity is always the central obstacle to rural disaster resilience or whether local commitment and political will can be equally important. Participants pointed out that investing in disaster mitigation when disasters have not yet occurred can be challenging, as rural local officials, who are often operating within constrained budgets, may have little incentive to pursue preventive action. Since the federal disaster system is largely reactive, it provides limited funding and few incentives for communities to address risks before disasters occur. At the same time, participants cautioned that apparent inaction may reflect overall distrust in the federal disaster assistance system. The question of how to encourage communities to exercise local agency would benefit from further research.
Research: To what extent do local commitment and political will affect the implementation of disaster resilience measures? How should policymakers distinguish a perceived lack of local commitment from a lack of staff, funding, or means? How can policy encourage local agency without shifting unreasonable responsibility onto communities with limited resources?
Related Content
Relevant resources
Center for Disaster Philanthropy and FSG. Advancing Rural Disaster Philanthropy: Barriers & Opportunities. Center for Disaster Philanthropy, June 2025. https://disasterphilanthropy.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/CDP_Advancing-Rural-Disaster-Philanthropy_Full-Report_June-2025.pdf.
Congressional Research Service. FEMA Review Council: Final Report. CRS Insight IN12693, May 15, 2026. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IN12693.html.
Cutter, Susan L. “The Origin and Diffusion of the Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI).” International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 109 (July 2024): 104576. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2024.104576.
FEMA Review Council. Final Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, May 7, 2026. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2026-05/26_0507_fema%20review%20council_final%20report.pdf.
French, Karina, and Carolyn Kousky. “The Effect of Disaster Insurance on Community Resilience: A Research Agenda for Local Policy.” Climate Policy 23, no. 5 (2023): 599–612. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2023.2170313.
Gimont, Stan, and Andy Winkler. “FEMA Reform: Comparing the Review Council’s Recommendations and Congressional Proposals.” Bipartisan Policy Center, May 26, 2026. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/issue-brief/fema-reform-comparing-the-review-councils-recommendations-and-congressional-proposals/.
Horney, Jennifer, Mai Nguyen, David Salvesen, Caroline Dwyer, John Cooper Jr., and Philip Berke. “Assessing the Quality of Rural Hazard Mitigation Plans in the Southeastern United States.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 37 (2016): 56–65. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0739456X16628605
Kousky, Carolyn, Karina French, Carlos Martín, and Manann Donoghoe. “The US Needs a New System for Declaring Natural Disasters and Distributing Federal Aid.” Brookings, July 14, 2023. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-us-needs-a-new-system-for-declaring-natural-disasters-and-distributing-federal-aid/.
Manuele, Kevin, and Mark Haggerty. “How FEMA Can Build Rural Resilience Through Disaster Preparedness.” Center for American Progress, October 6, 2022. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-fema-can-build-rural-resilience-through-disaster-preparedness/.
Martín, Carlos, Carolyn Kousky, Manann Donoghoe, and Karina French. “Four Principles for Reforming US Disaster Policy.” Brookings, May 25, 2023. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/four-principles-for-reforming-us-disaster-policy/.
Meyer, Michelle Annette, Mason Alexander-Hawk, J. Carlee Purdum, Haley Yelle, Jordan Vick, Adrian Rodriguez, Saul Romero, and Kenneth Taylor. “Resilience in Recovery? Understanding the Extent, Structure, and Operations of Nonprofits Meant to Address Disaster Survivors’ Unmet Needs.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 52, no. 4 (2022): 979–1005. https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640221138265.
Smith, Gavin, and Olivia Vilá. “A National Evaluation of State and Territory Roles in Hazard Mitigation: Building Local Capacity to Implement FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grants.” Sustainability 12, no. 23 (2020): 10013. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122310013.
Smith, K. K., E. A. Goto, S. J. Domingue, et al. 2026. “Mapping Rural Local Government Capacity for Climate Resilience Projects in the United States.” Public Administration Review 86, no. 2 (2026): 311–325. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.70025.
U.S. Government Accountability Office. Small Business Administration: Targeted Outreach about Disaster Assistance Could Benefit Rural Communities. GAO-24-106755. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, February 22, 2024. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106755.
Authors
Compiled by
America’s Rural Future: Brookings-AEI Commission on U.S. Rural Prosperity is a bipartisan endeavor to enable rural prosperity by strengthening economic opportunity, resilience, and quality of life across rural America. Learn more.
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Acknowledgements and disclosures
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public.
The Brookings-AEI Commission on U.S. Rural Prosperity and associated work is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Ascendium Education Group, CoBank, and The SCAN Foundation.
The conclusions and recommendations from the commission are solely those of its author(s), and do not reflect the views or policies of Brookings or AEI, their management teams, other scholars, or the funders acknowledged above.
The Brookings Institution is committed to quality, independence, and impact.
We are supported by a diverse array of funders. In line with our values and policies, each Brookings publication represents the sole views of its author(s).
Commentary
Disaster response, recovery, and resilience in rural America
Research summary of America’s Rural Future symposium | August 6, 2026
October 23, 2026