A flood insurance rate map (FIRM) is an official map of a community within the United States that displays the

floodplains A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudie, ...

, more explicitly special hazard areas and risk premium zones, as delineated by the

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

(FEMA). The term is used mainly in the United States but similar maps exist in many other countries, such as Australia.

Uses

FIRMs display areas that fall within the

100-year flood A 100-year flood, also called a 1% flood,Holmes, R.R., Jr., and Dinicola, K. (2010) ''100-Year flood–it's all about chance 'U.S. Geological Survey General Information Product 106/ref> is a flood event at a level that is reached or exceeded onc ...

boundary. Areas that fall within the boundary are called ''special flood hazard areas'' (SFHAs) and they are further divided into insurance risk zones. The term 100-year flood indicates that the area has a one-percent chance of flooding in any given year, not that a flood will occur every 100 years. Such maps are used in

town planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

, in the insurance industry, and by individuals who want to avoid moving into a home at risk of flooding or to know how to protect their property. FIRMs are used to set rates of insurance against risk of flood and whether buildings are insurable at all against flood. It is similar to a

topographic Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scienc ...

map, but is designed to show floodplains. Towns and municipalities use FIRMs to plan zoning areas. Most places will not allow construction in a flood way.

Creation process

In the United States the FIRM for each town is occasionally updated. At that time a preliminary FIRM will be published, and available for public viewing and comment. FEMA sells the official FIRMs, called ''community kits'', as well as an updating access service to the maps. There are also some companies that sell software to locate land parcels or real estate on digitized FIRMs. These FIRMs are used in identifying whether a land or building is in flood zone and, if so, which of the different flood zones are in effect. In 2004, FEMA began a project to update and digitize the flood plain maps at a yearly cost of $200 million. The new maps usually take around 18 months to go from a preliminary release to the final product. During that time period FEMA works with local communities to determine the final maps.

Louisiana and FEMA

In early 2014, two congressmen from Louisiana,

Bill Cassidy William Morgan Cassidy (born September 28, 1957) is an American physician and politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States senator from Louisiana, a seat he has held since 2015. A member of the Republic ...

and

Steve Scalise Stephen Joseph Scalise ( ; born October 6, 1965) is an American politician who has been the House majority leader since 2023 and the U.S. representative for since 2008. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he was ...

, asked FEMA to consider the width of drainage canals, water flow levels, drainage improvements, pumping stations and computer models when deciding the final flood insurance rate maps.Martin, Aaron (2014-01-06).
Cassidy, Scalise push for fair flood rate maps
{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140109003201/http://riponadvance.com/news/cassidy-scalise-push-fair-flood-rate-maps/6107 , date=2014-01-09 ". ''Ripon Advance'' (Washington, DC). Retrieved 2014-01-10.

References

External links

FIRMettes from FEMA
Hydrology and urban planning Flood control in the United States Flood insurance Federal Emergency Management Agency Geologic maps

Uses

Creation process

Louisiana and FEMA

See also

References

External links