This explosion of growth has left many thousands of New Yorkers vulnerable to major risk and potential financial ruin from flood events, which are becoming more frequent and more extreme with a changing climate.
Before we continue, we have to answer an urgent question: Why are New Yorkers unaware that this development took place in such potentially dangerous areas, and would they really want their tax dollars and public policies to perpetuate the practice?
America’s flood risk is largely defined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) working in concert with local authorities. The resulting flood maps are used by everyone from homeowners, to bankers and insurers, to local governments to try to understand their flood risk exposure. The National Flood Insurance Reform Act of 1994 dictates that these maps should be updated every five years, but they are often out of date, and can be difficult to interpret for an individual property. Subsequent attempts at reform by Congres
NGS revises NOAA report on working in the modernized NSRS
The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has revised an important technical document on the modernized National Spatial Reference System (NSRS). Zilkoski explores a use case on flood mapping, discussing an Elevation Certificate example, Flood Insurance Rate Map and Flood Insurance Study. NGS has scheduled a webinar for April 8 to discuss the four use case examples.
In February 2021, the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) revised NOAA Technical Report NOS NGS 67
Blueprint for the Modernized NSRS, Part 3: Working in the Modernized NSRS. Users can download the publication. See the box titled “NOAA Technical Report NOS NGS 67.”
Introduction
As natural disasters increase in frequency and intensity, communities across the country have sought state policy solutions. Disaster seasons of the last few years have broken records across the board. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria and 14 others made 2017 the costliest hurricane season on record. It would also have been the most destructive wildfire season on record, if not for 2018, the nation’s deadliest and most destructive year ever, featuring the deadliest single fire in a century―the Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. The mega-fires of 2020 are still fresh in the nation’s mind―a year that gave California five of its six largest fires in state history, Colorado its single largest fire ever, and temporarily propelled air pollution in some cities to among the worst in the world. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the nation averaged nearly 12 “billion-dollar” disasters annually over the past decade―up from less than f