Available on-demand
Closing the gap in US flood map coverage
Thursday, July 10 | 11:00 ET, 08:00 PT, 16.00 BST
A step-by-step guide to identifying and addressing underestimations in US flood risk
Flood risk is increasing. Has your state’s flood data coverage kept up?
Across the US, the landscape of floodplain management and water resource planning is shifting rapidly. As the cost of catastrophic flood events grows, regulations tighten and investment in resilience comes under greater scrutiny, the need for accurate, actionable flood data is more critical than ever.
Yet many public agencies, engineers and resilience professionals are not fully informed around the gaps in the flood data they rely on. In a recent survey, we found that only 21% of respondents said they had high confidence in their flood data. More than a third reported below-average confidence in their current datasets.
This uncertainty can lead to costly mistakes in permitting, infrastructure investment and community planning.
So, where should you begin? Start by asking:
- What is your current flood map coverage?
- Is publicly available data truly suitable for your specific use case?
- Does your provider allow you to understand the risk in the expanded flood hazard area recommended within ASCE 24-24?
Join this expert-led webinar to get the answers
In this one-hour session, we’ll guide you through how to assess the quality, coverage and relevance of your current flood data. You’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of the limitations of public data, the strengths and trade-offs of private alternatives and the tools needed to close the gap.
We’ll cover:
- How good is public (or your current) flood data?
- How to assess flood data quality and what to look for
- Validation and why it matters
- Public vs. private: Is it all or nothing?
- Case study: How private data shaped long-term investment decisions
This webinar is designed to serve as a practical starting point for professionals working in water management, infrastructure and public planning. Throughout the session, our team will outline what tools you should add to your belt, including what freely available resources already exist to help you get started. These include:
- US Flood Risk Index: A free interactive tool that provides at-a-glance map coverage and exposure information for each state.
- Flood risk snapshot: 1-1 personalized risk snapshot for a specific location (on request).
- Questions to ask your flood data provider: A comprehensive guide to evaluating flood data sources and models. Includes expert-backed questions that help you distinguish between essential features and misleading claims.
Read the case study on mapping statewide flood vulnerability in Florida
Quote I’d like to thank the effort of regional flood planning groups, its members, technical consultants, the public and other agencies who have been putting in a lot of time to put together regional flood plans, essentially going to come together as the first State Flood Plan for Texas.
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Fathom’s powerful models are uniquely able to support our work evaluating potential nature-based solutions at large scales. Working with them has been great – they are highly skilled professionals who have delivered products on time throughout every phase of our work.
Quote “At Floodbase, we value scientific rigor and transparency. This is one of the main reasons we chose to work with the team at Fathom.”
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Quote Fathom provides a much-improved resolution of flood risk mapping. This helped us identify significantly more critical assets that were at risk compared to that shown using FEMA maps and created a more localized understanding of flood risk.
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Quote I knew it was going to be a challenge to create a comprehensive statewide vulnerability assessment using a seamless data set that had both existing and future conditions. We saw that Fathom had carried out similar work in Texas, so we were confident Fathom’s data was comprehensive and robust.
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