USA: Floodplain maps are outdated. This scientist wants to change that
More than half of FEMA’s flood maps rely on decades-old data. Now, a group of Texas researchers is tackling the problem with a $3 million grant and crowdsourced data.
By Amal Ahmed
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Two years ago, Texans learned that truth the hard way when Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast. The storm was classified as a 500-year storm. But neighborhoods that FEMA’s flood maps never predicted to flood—even in a storm of that size—experienced historic, devastating flooding.
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In an effort to rectify the problem, FEMA and the Texas General Land Office are partnering on a $3 million, two-year effort to create a new type of floodplain map. Sam Brody, the project’s principal investigator and the director of Texas A&M Galveston’s Center for Texas Beaches and Shores, spoke with the Observer about how to build better and more useful models by incorporating more than just traditional scientific data.
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