FEMA Floodplain Mapping

Background

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was established by the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 to help assess the flood prone risk of areas and communities located near streams, rivers, and other water bodies. This flood risk is defined by whether or not a location is within an area that has a 1 percent chance of receiving (or exceeding) a 100 year flood event, called a 100 year flood zone.

In early 2005, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) entered into a cooperative agreement with the Center for Applied Research in Environmental Systems (CARES), the Geographic Resource Center (GRC), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to provide Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps (DFIRMs) for the state of Missouri. These DFIRM’s are being created or updated to show the 100 year floodplain used as a standard in floodplain management and as a tool used by the NFIP.

CARES and the GRC have teamed up to produce DFIRM’s for eight counties in Missouri, and are being overseen by the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA). The USGS has been contracted to produce two counties.

Objectives

CARES will begin the process of producing DFIRMS showing updated Zone A (Approximate) 100 year floodplain mapping for Marion County, McDonald County, Pike County, and Ralls County in July 2005. The estimated completion date of these four counties is December of 2006. After this time, copies should be available for download. Detailed Studies and revised data layers are incorporated where available.

Participating Partners in the Missouri Floodplain Mapping Program

	Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) As the administrator of the NFIP, FEMA is charged with conducting studies to identify flood hazard areas, and producing maps of these areas to be used by communities participating in the flood insurance program. FEMA is also tasked with establishing the standards of floodplain management that are used to help reduce future losses to structures located within the different flood zones. FEMA has entered a Cooperating Technical Partners (CTP) Partnership Agreement with the Missouri SEMA to develop a DFIRM and Flood Insurance Study (FIS) for counties located within the State of Missouri.
	Missouri State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) The role of SEMA in Missouri is to protect lives and property when major disasters threaten public safety anywhere within the states boarders. One role of SEMA is to respond to natural disasters, which include severe weather and floods. As such, SEMA is also responsible for constructing a State Emergency Operations Plan to help coordinate Missouri's government departments and agencies for any emergency that requires state resources and personnel. For the Missouri Floodplain Mapping Project, SEMA will collect all data produced by the mapping partners, and checked for quality control by AMEC for submission to Watershed Concepts and FEMA.
	United States Geological Survey - Water Science Center (USGS) The mission of the USGS is that of an "...unbiased, multi-disciplinary science organization that focuses on biology, geography, geology, geospatial information, and water, we are dedicated to the timely, relevant, and impartial study of the landscape, our natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten us." The USGS-Water Science Center is acting as a Mapping Partner in the Missouri Floodplain Mapping Project, and have been assigned the responsibility of completing DFIRM's for Boone County and Franklin County.
	Geographic Resource Center (GRC) Located in the University of Missouri Department of Geography, the GRC uses a multi-disciplinary approach to apply research and experienced teaching facility for geographic and remote sensing data analysis.
	Watershed Concepts With ten offices located in eight different states, Watershed Concepts has performed almost 40 Flood Insurance Studies for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the southeastern U.S. since 1984. Watershed Concepts also has extensive expertise working with Digital Floodplain Mapping, having performed dozens of studies for Letters of Map Revision that were successfully processed. FEMA has asked that Watershed Concepts act as National Service Provider (NSP) for the Missouri Floodplain mapping project. As the NSP, Watershed Concepts will review technical, scientific, and other information submitted by SEMA to ensure that the data and modeling are consistent with FEMA standards and standard engineering practice, and are sufficient to prepare the DFIRM.
	AMEC AMEC is an international project management and services company headquartered in London, UK. AMEC employs roughly 44,000 people in 40 countries, and has a regional head office in Washington D.C. For the Missouri Floodplain Mapping Project, AMEC was contracted as project manager by SEMA. Data is submitted to AMEC from the mapping partners to check both for quality and to be sure FEMA DFIRM standards are met. If data passes AMEC's quality controls, it is assumed to pass SEMA's quality controls as well, and therefore qualifies for submission to Watershed Concepts and FEMA for final approval.

Additional Links

FEMA's Flood Hazard Mapping Frequently Asked Questions site. This is an excellent source for flood map background information. It also has links to an acronym table, and terms that show up in reference to DFIRM's.

USGS State of Missouri Flood Mapping Project site. This site gives information on the status of the USGS/SEMA portion of Floodplain Mapping.

Download DFIRMS

Completed DFIRMS produced by third party organizations will be listed for download as they become available.

For Internet Explorer users having trouble accessing FTP you can check this box:
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Principle Investigators: Chris Barnett

Project Manager: Scott Burton

Project Staff: Richard Charrier, Michael Hardy, Bryan Mayhan

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