US flood risk 'severely underestimated'

[nitpicker]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42169462

US flood risk 'severely underestimated'

By Victoria Gill
BBC News, New Orleans

11 December 2017

Scientists and engineers have teamed up across the Atlantic to "redraw" the flood map of the US. Their work reveals 40 million Americans are at risk of having their homes flooded - more than three times as many people as federal flood maps show. The UK-US team say they have filled in "vast amounts of missing information" in the way flood risk is currently measured in the country. They presented the work at the 2017 American Geophysical Union meeting.

This mapping project includes areas across the US that are on river floodplains and those at risk of flash floods associated with heavy rainfall. It focuses on rivers and does not include areas at risk of coastal flooding.
(snip)

One of the researchers, Oliver Wing PhD from the University of Bristol in the UK and part of the flood-mapping organisation Fathom, spoke to BBC News ahead of this international gathering of Earth and planetary scientists. He said the new maps were based on "cutting edge science", simulating every river catchment area.

The biggest issue, Mr Wing explained, is the how incomplete the network of river gauges is in the US. So he and his colleagues created a model based on decades of analysis of the way in which river systems behave. This model "fills in those data gaps," he told BBC News, meaning the probability of flooding can be worked out in every river catchment area.

Combining those probabilities with population and land-use data, Mr Wing said, revealed that "40 million people and $5.5 trillion worth of assets" are within an area that has a 1% chance of flooding each year. When you combine population data with government flood maps, which are created by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), "they only have 13 million people on that floodplain", said Mr Wing.
(snip)

[Pachamama]

1. Perfect....just in time as the Flood Insurance policies increase drastically or there isn't even any

....funding for the US Governments Flood Insurance program.....

You know....the insurance that is the only one of its kind and that Mortgage companies require the homeowner to have if they have a home mortgage on a property in a flood zone....

[Finishline42]

3. Flood insurance is heavily subsidized by the Federal Govt

(Reuters) - A proposal by the Trump administration to cut $190 million in funding for updating U.S. maps of flood-prone areas would trigger higher insurance rates or more homebuilding in risky locations, a consumer group said on Monday.

If flood insurance were to increase to the point that the cost of insurance reflected the true risk it would cost Trump properties millions of $$$. Clear conflict of interest in his action.

[Nitram]

2. NPR has done some excellent stories on the topic. One means of dealing with the problem, buyouts

of properties in flood zones that have repeatedly used federal flood insurance, is severely underused. We should be moving houses out of the flood zones of rivers that regularly flood instead of paying for their reconstruction over and over, spending far more than the buildings are worth on the market.