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In our work with customers across the United States, we’ve consistently seen local government customers tasked with complying with FEMA requirements resulting from the 2005 Floodplain Map Modernization Program. This program was a major federal effort to improve the quality and accuracy of floodplain information that has had echoing effects decades later. Many VertiGIS customers have actively participated in this process, creating extensive sets of GIS-based floodplain models and maps.
As data has improved – and flooding as a whole has increased worldwide in recent years – requests from internal and public parties for floodplain-related information have increased significantly. Municipal departments across the world that are responsible for managing floodplain data reached a crossroads: either hire more staff or build a public-facing web application to automate the distribution of floodplain-related information.
These municipalities need a solution that is stable and well-supported for the foreseeable future. It needs to be web-based, work on mobile devices, and have an easy-to-use interface. Enter VertiGIS flood impact map viewers.
The Solution
VertiGIS can deliver public-facing applications that allow the general public to retrieve property-specific floodplain information and download supporting floodplain models. They can also be configured to deliver property-specific maps and reports to be printed for information purposes, or for inclusion with building permit applications. To date, these apps have primarily served three different user types:
- Homeowners: Citizens need access to floodplain-related information, which was previously accessible only by City staff. The type of information needed ranges from official FEMA information to local development data to answering simple questions (i.e. “Am I in the floodplain?”).
- Developers: Having on-demand access to your municipality’s latest version of the floodplain models and supporting data helps developers design their projects quicker and ensure they are using the best available data. This speeds construction and ensures that new development is properly prepared in the event of a flood.
- Real Estate Agents: Real estate agents use these solutions to look up a property’s floodplain status while showing that property to a client to ensure all parties are aware of potential flood risks.
See It In Action – Customer Example
Don’t take our word for it: hear from one of our customers – the City of Austin, TX – about their success in building a flood impact mapping solution (which they’ve aptly named FloodPro!) with VertiGIS technology. The robust FloodPro web application is operating system-agnostic and is built on a platform that will be well-supported long into the future. The City tracks the number of floodplain information reports generated and floodplain models downloaded; they’ve reported that FloodPro averages approximately 2,000 to 3,000 of these activities per month. Using the application, the City has been able to free up staff time equivalent to 1.5 full-time employees and reassign time for work on other important projects. Learn more about the City of Austin.
“VertiGIS Studio affords us the ability to rapidly adapt to future technological needs. In this case, we were able to use it to address a change in technology (the rise of the cell phone and the downfall of browser plug-ins) that was not foreseen during the original project.” – Karl McArthur, PE, Supervising Engineer – Floodplain Office and Flood Early Warning
Want to learn more about how your organization could implement a flood impact map viewer? Contact us by filling out the form below.
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