Abstract

Innovative FEMA Flood Risk Mapping with ESRI ArcGIS 10
Track: Disaster and Emergency Management
Authors: Matthew Riggs, Zachary Baccala, Joshua Price, Timothy Brink

ESRI and flood hazard mapping have been close partners for many years and that partnership is refreshed with ESRI's new ArcGIS 10 software and FEMA's new Risk MAP national flood risk mapping initiative. FEMA recently published new mapping specifications for Risk MAP that include not only a redesign of their mapping and database standard but also a requirement for geo-driven flood insurance study reports.

Our solution to address the FEMA requirements was to use FloodMap™ Desktop software from Atkins, which is built on ESRI ArcGIS 10. We leveraged: data-driven pages to create standard map series; Maplex for complex label rules; and Open GIS Consortium (OGC) standards to provide data from a server directly to ESRI layers to ensure users were working with common data. From our case study, other organizations can save significant project cost with this method.