The future of hazard mapping(…?)

FYI – I getting the feeling that the outside industry is outpacing FEMA products, whereby, their non-regulatory products will become obsolete.   

I attended a NEMA Webinar earlier this week on yet another flood risk assessment technology from the firm FloodMapp whose products are designed to provide states/locals “Flood Intelligence”  — aka situational awareness:

• Forecast (Real-time intelligence that answers the question “where is it going to flood tomorrow?)
• NowCast (Live flood mapping that answers the question “where is it flooding right now?”)
• PostCast (Flood extent data that answers the question “what was impacted by the flood?”)

The NEMA webinar also had the Chief Resilience Officer for Norfolk, VA, who discussed how the community uses this FloodMapp product in their CRS program.  They also signed up  w/ the Waze app to re-route drivers away from road hazards (“Turn around / don’t Drown” ). Waze uses Norfolk’s FloodMapp data.

Between firms like First Street Foundation, FloodMapp, others (e.g.: CoreLogic, Esri – probably a sizeable list…), and FEMA, there is a growing supply of the kind of info to help communities to identify their hazard risks. The ‘winner’ will be the one that has the right mix of well-communicated science and granular data that becomes publicly accepted and can ‘make the argument’ in the arena of state/local politics and in the courts (or vice-versa). 

Taken to its next logical step:  If these products are increasingly useful and used to better define a communities’ land use requirements, then that makes NFIP ins. maps(FIRMs) irrelevant – especially since FEMA uses Risk Rating 2.0 to determine ins. rates.

Thus, will FEMA need to spend $400 mil annually on RiskMAP and FIRMs?

For future consideration in this portfolio space…