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Homeowner flood risk and risk reduction from home elevation between the limits of the 100- and 500-year floodplains



Details

  • Journal Title:
    Frontiers in Earth Science
  • Personal Author:
  • NOAA Program & Office:
    OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
  • Description:
    Floods inflict significant damage even outside the 100-year floodplain. Thus, restricting flood risk analysis to the 100-year floodplain (Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA) in the United States of America) is misleading. Flood risk outside the SFHA is often underestimated because of minimal flood-related insurance requirements and regulations and sparse flood depth data. This study proposes a systematic approach to predict flood risk for a single-family home using average annual loss (AAL) in the shaded X Zone–the area immediately outside the SFHA (i.e., the 500-year floodplain), which lies between the limits of the 1.0- and 0.2-percent annual flood probability. To further inform flood mitigation strategy, annual flood risk reduction with additional elevation above an initial first-floor height (FFH0) is estimated. The proposed approach generates synthetic flood parameters, quantifies AAL for a hypothetical slab-on–grade, single-family home with varying attributes and scenarios above the slab-on-grade elevation, and compares flood risk for two areas using the synthetic flood parameters vs existing spatial interpolation-estimated flood parameters. Results reveal a median AAL in the shaded X Zone of 0.13 and 0.17 percent of replacement cost value (VR) for a one-story, single-family home without and with basement, respectively, at FFH0 and 500-year flood depth <1 foot. Elevating homes one and four feet above FFH0 substantially mitigates this risk, generating savings of 0.07–0.18 and 0.09–0.23 percent of VR for a one-story, single-family home without and with basement, respectively. These results enhance understanding of flood risk and the benefits of elevating homes above FFH0 in the shaded X Zone.
  • Keywords:
  • Source:
    Frontiers in Earth Science, 11
  • DOI:
  • ISSN:
    2296-6463
  • Format:
    PDF
  • Publisher:
    Frontiers Media SA
  • Document Type:
    Journal Article
  • Funding:
  • License:
  • Rights Information:
    CC BY
  • Compliance:
    Library
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha256:4817b684ea479d625872f17d65fdf851f199a2b5e5f1875c344a38ea5e7e1ec2
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 1.26 MB ]
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