Flood Risk and Resilience: Enhancing Rural Communities’ Ability to Prepare for and Respond to Flood Events

Abstract:

Flood events pose a serious threat to rural communities that have limited resources to allocate towards preparing for and responding to the potential disruption to critical functions and services. Of particular concern is the increase in frequency and severity of flood events that certain locales are experiencing, and the potential for this trend to become even more pronounced in the future due to climate variation. Accurate flood risk assessments are an imperative step in preparing for these events, particularly with respect to identifying key vulnerabilities and areas for flood mitigation measures. The nationally recommended tool for evaluating flood hazards in the United States is the Hazus Flood Model—a software developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Since many counties rely on Hazus to inform their flood hazard mitigation and response strategies, it is vital to not only compare the results of Hazus with other sources to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the tool, but also to develop an approach that allows for a more holistic view on flood resilience. This research, focused on several counties along the Mississippi River in western Tennessee, concludes that Hazus may dramatically miscalculate crucial components of flood risk including flood extent and building damage. This suggests that counties basing their flood emergency response plans solely on Hazus results will likely be underprepared for future flood events of significant magnitude. Thus, this topic is relevant not only in scientific discourse, but also immediate real-world applications to address the questions: What is a feasible way to assess flood risk and community resilience in rural communities? And is it possible to develop a methodology that can be replicated with limited resources, such that rural communities will be able to conduct more accurate resilience assessments independently in the future? This work aims to address these questions by creating a framework that highlights flood impacts on emergency response capabilities and transportation network disruption, that has been applied to several case studies and can be replicated by other counties with similar objectives.