Flood monitoring product aims to make tracking flood damage more efficient

The amount of flooding in the U.S. has been rising since the 1950s, with damages from floods costing the U.S. an estimated $180 billion every year, a recent Senate report found.

A new flood response data product launched by Floodbase is designed to help governments track flood damage and flood severity in near-real time to enable a swifter, more efficient response.

“Our mission is to enable all communities to prepare for and respond to climate disasters by reducing the barriers to scientific information and capital,” stated Bessie Schwarz, CEO of Floodbase, a flood data provider and reporting agent.

The company’s National Flood Response Data Product incorporates machine learning while drawing on data from public satellites, stream gauges and hydrological models to provide access to flood event analytics that “capture hourly and peak flood extent” when flooding occurs.

A Floodbase map that tracked flooding during Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

The tool offers users a continuous map of flood severity and peak flooding at the county and census tract level, according to Floodbase.

“Users can then display the dataset over existing geographic information systems (GIS) map data layers such as infrastructure, policyholders or a social vulnerability index, thereby making relief and recovery efforts more efficient,” the company added.

The company was selected in 2023 to provide flood analytics for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the data for which Floodbase said it will make available for purchase to commercial and governmental customers through the end of Nov. 30.

The company will offer its near-real time flood data available to government and commercial customers beginning Aug. 1, with a flood data response product waitlist available at this link.

“By making this data more broadly available, communities will be better prepared, and better equipped to deploy resources to recover efficiently and equitably from flood events,” Schwarz added in a statement.

Among weather-related disasters, flooding remains the most common and most expensive within the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Last week, FEMA finalized its latest Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, which adds rules for rebuilding that are designed to increase structural resiliency to floods.

“The human and economic cost of flooding is devastating and will only grow in the years ahead as the impacts of climate change grow more intense and reach more communities,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in a statement. “Taking forward-looking, effective steps to increase resilience before disaster strikes will save lives, property, critical infrastructure and taxpayer money.”

In 2023, the Fifth National Climate Assessment called climate change a “rapidly intensifying threat.”