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Project Goal
The purpose of this project was to develop a configurable analytics tool to generate flooding inundation data for the seven-county area of the Tampa Bay Regional Resiliency Coalition. The resulting data was needed to identify risks for the Florida state resiliency plan, Resilient Florida, but also provided the flooding extent data and corresponding tools to local governments in the region.Business Problem Solved
The Tampa Bay region lacked unified flood risk knowledge in one of the most flood prone areas in the country. This project provided an analytics tool based on the Vulnerability Assessment that resulted in a unified data set and a corresponding technical tool for the region. Flood scenario data and best practices were defined to assure consistency throughout the region.
The ArcGIS Pro Inundation Tool generates polygon features representing existing and future floodplain boundaries using the best available geospatial flood risk modeled data and terrain as inputs. The Inundation Tool enabled the creation of flood risk boundary polygons and accompanying derivative flood raster datasets covering the seven counties within 3 months; a task which otherwise would have taken years to complete. NOAA Sea Level Rise data was also leveraged by the tool to create 2040 and 2050 future coastal flood risk scenarios for the region.
Technology Implemented
ArcGIS Pro was used to produce the flooding extents. TBRPC stakeholders wanted GIS ready flood data to use in their Vulnerability Assessments analysis.
The Inundation Tool was developed using the ArcGIS API for Python. Existing geoprocessing tools were leveraged within the tool to configure new flood scenarios. ArcGIS Story Maps was used as an outreach platform to share information, tools, and data for the project.
Development Team Biography
Sam Amoako-Atta GISP, CFM: Sam has 20 years of experience in GIS applications in Water Resources. He is a renowned FEMA risk product technical expert.
Sam Sarkar, PE: Sam has 14 years’ experience as a Water Resources engineer. He is an expert in the development of numerical and computational models to support Water Resources.
Ashley Mott: Ashley serves as the GIS Manager for the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. She supports TBRPC’s planning efforts through GIS modeling, spatial analysis, data visualization, and cartography.