They believe their method should result in improved maps that are more frequently updated. Stephens and Bledsoe hope their approach will produce maps that more realistically depict flood zones with less effort and lower costs compared to previous methods. This research demonstrates a simplified method that produces very similar and acceptable results but is much less time intensive and is easier and less costly to perform,” Bledsoe explained.
#Pima county flood plain maps full#
“The way this type of analysis has been done in the past is very time intensive and involves running complex hydraulic models thousands of times to understand the full extent of the flood hazards. In the past, this kind of detailed analysis wasn’t accessible to most municipalities, especially in communities lacking resources. It’s like confidence intervals based on a standard deviation in statistics – the flood zone has confidence intervals around it and we reveal that variability to help with planning and decision-making to protect people and property. The uncertainty may be 100 feet wide in some places or more than 1,000 feet wide in other places along the floodplain,” said Bledsoe.Īnother view of flooding in Tucson, Arizona. “We use advanced tools to quantify the uncertainty around flood lines and describe the full range of locations where flooding is likely to occur. This approach differs from traditional flood maps because it captures the variation in potential flooding scenarios for any given spot within the map. The new approach introduced by Bledsoe and Stephens uses the concept of confidence intervals, which show the standard of deviation around a specific prediction, to help clarify the flooding risk homeowners face in any given place. “In reality, that line can be very uncertain and fuzzy, and a large proportion of flood damages occur outside of it.”
“Conventional flood hazard mapping tends to draw a single line on a map showing the flood zone, which is often interpreted by the public and politicians as, ‘You’re not going to get flooded if you’re outside the line,’” said Bledsoe. The study offers what the researchers describe as “a practical, simplified approach for quantifying uncertainty in flood hazard estimates” by modeling flooding in two urban watersheds: Proctor Creek in Atlanta and Bronx Wash in Tucson, Arizona. A probabilistic floodplain map for Proctor Creek in Atlanta, an urban watershed used for modeling by the researchers.
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