New flood maps clarify the risk homeowners face

Read the full story from the University of Georgia.

Flooding in urban areas cost Americans more than $106 billion between 1960 and 2016, damaging property, disrupting businesses and claiming lives in the process. Determining which areas are most likely to flood amid ever-changing land use and shifting rainfall and climate patterns can be expensive and complicated – and past methods of drawing flood maps fail to capture the inherent uncertainty in flood predictions.

Now, new research from the University of Georgia outlines a simplified, cost-effective method for developing flood maps that reflects the uncertainty in flood predictions. Published in the journal Water, the study was led by engineering professor Brian Bledsoe, director of UGA’s Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems (IRIS), and Tim Stephens, a UGA and IRIS alumnus now with Dynamic Solutions LLC, an engineering, planning and research firm that specializes in water resources.