Abstract

Introduction to FEMA's New Flood Risk Database
Track: Federal Applications and Enterprise Management
Authors: Paul Rooney, Tom Tri, Louie Greenwell

Beginning in Fiscal Year 2010, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) initiated the Risk Mapping, Assessment, and Planning (Risk MAP) program. To support the program, FEMA developed a new Flood Risk geodatabase which contains several new GIS datasets. These GIS datasets help to explain the changes to flood hazards over time, indicate depths of flooding from various rainfall events, show predicted losses from these events and identify locations where mitigation actions could take place which could lessen the impacts from flooding. The layers within the geodatabase will be shown interactively using ArcMap so users can visualize how all the elements of the schema are assembled at a watershed scale. This database is used to support a comprehensive report and maps that local communities can use to better plan for, respond to and mitigate flooding emergencies.