People walk down a flooded street as they evacuate their homes after the area was inundated with flooding from Hurricane Harvey on August 28, 2017 in Houston, Texas. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Flooding caused by an increasing number of intense storms is a national challenge and significant source of economic loss, social disruption and housing inequality across the United States, says a new report from Texas A&M University and the University of Maryland.
The first to assess the national scope and consequences of urban flooding, the report calls on the administration and Congress to bring together representatives from state, municipal and tribal governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the public to define responsibilities and implement a variety of actions at the local level.
The recommendation is one of nine presented in the report to help governments at all levels take control of the growing threat.
Texas A&M University President Michael K. Young said Drs. Sam Brody with A&M’s Galveston campus and Gerry Galloway with UMD have put forth real and immediate measures everyone can take to help ensure millions of people are safe from these disastrous floods.
A wake-up call
“As we have witnessed for ourselves here in Texas, urban flooding is a serious threat to lives, property, and economic and infrastructure development,” Young said. “This unprecedented study is a wake-up call for the entire nation that urban flooding is a growing and dangerous problem, but likewise enormously powerful and exceptionally useful as it outlines feasible remedial approaches and solutions.”
Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp said these researchers have discovered major threats and troubling trends that need to be addressed.
“Most Americans will be surprised to learn that much of the country’s urban flooding occurs outside traditional 100-year floodplains,” said Sharp, who was chosen to head the Governor’s Commission to Rebuild Texas after Hurricane Harvey. “The work by the Texas A&M System and the University of Maryland is another example of how research universities serve the public good. Only by understanding the problem can we find the solutions.”
Gerry Galloway, Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering with UMD’s Center for Disaster Resilience, said urban flooding is a more prevalent problem than many people have thought.
Urban flooding has historically been thought of as something that occurs in only a handful of major cities, Galloway said.
“This report affirms that communities across the country are in fact facing similar — and escalating — challenges and that the principal responsibility for addressing the issue rests with local governments where their unique issues can be addressed,” he said.
Flooding impacts
Urban flooding occurs when rainfall runoff exceeds what the landscape can absorb or the drainage system can move. As communities convert more land into roads, buildings, and other impervious surfaces, drainage systems — themselves often aging, undersized, and difficult to maintain — reach capacity faster, leaving flood waters to devastate homes and businesses.
“The frequency of these events erodes the economic stability, health, and safety of a community over time. And the impacts can be felt miles from a stream channel or water body,” said Sam Brody, director of the Center for Texas Beaches and Shores on the Galveston Campus.
To characterize the extent and impacts of urban flooding in the United States, the Center for Texas Beaches and Shores at the TAMU Galveston Campus and UMD’s Center for Disaster Resilience surveyed stormwater and floodplain management practitioners with knowledge of more than 350 municipalities in 48 states. The survey was also supplemented by multiple discussions with government agency and professional organization focus groups.
The survey revealed that:
- 83 percent of the 388 question respondents indicated they had experienced urban flooding in their community
- 46 percent of the 325 question respondents indicated that urban flooding has occurred in numerous or most areas
- 85 percent of the 296 question respondents had experienced urban flooding outside the Special Flood Hazard Area
- 51 percent of the 325 communities represented by question respondents had been affected by moderate or larger urban floods
The research team confirmed the survey responses with a detailed spatial analysis of federal flood-related data and information collected by state and nonprofit groups. While no single agency tracks urban flooding directly, the team found over 3,600 events in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s flood loss database from 1993 to 2017 indicating severe rainfall flooding.
A growing threat
The team also discovered that more than 25 percent of National Flood Insurance Program claims filed in 1972-2014 were submitted for properties outside the 100-year flood zone — in some neighborhoods, all flood impacts occurred well outside of these boundaries. Overall, the results suggest the much of the damage incurred over the last several decades was caused by overwhelmed drainage systems and the alteration of natural drainage patterns through development.
Despite the growing extent of the threat, Brody, Galloway and their collaborators report that many municipal governments have been unable to dedicate the resources needed to mitigate urban flooding. At the federal level, no single agency is responsible for overseeing or supporting local activities.
“Management and oversight activities related to urban flooding are scattered throughout governance levels and agencies,” Galloway said. “This creates overlaps in responsibility in some cases, gaps in others, and generally curbs progress toward effective management.
“It is also apparent that many people who live and work in flood-prone urban areas don’t know the risks,” he said.
Planning ahead
To move the policy needle on urban flooding mitigation, the report team recommends that governors, tribal leaders, and regional and municipal officials review current oversight responsibilities in their jurisdictions as well as the provisions for flood water, wastewater, and stormwater management. They also urge states to integrate urban flood risk communication, mapping, and disclosure measures into real estate transactions.
Congress, the administration, and federal agencies, the report said, must take strategic steps to support locally led mitigation efforts. For example, the administration should establish a risk identification grant program and federal agencies should integrate urban flood risk communication into existing programs for riverine and coastal flooding. Galloway, Brody, and their team also recommend that the administration and Congress tap a single federal agency to provide oversight of federal mitigation support while the forum of national stakeholders is stood up.
“And at every level of government, officials need to take steps to ensure that efforts to combat the impacts of urban flooding reaches the communities and neighborhoods at the highest risk, regardless of their socioeconomic or geographic characteristics,” Brody said.
This study was completed through financial support from the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M and the A. James Clark School of Engineering at UMD.
Samuel D. Brody is a Regents Professor and holder of the George P. Mitchell ’40 Chair in Sustainable Coasts in the Departments of Marine Sciences and Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University. He is the Director of the Center for Texas Beaches and Shores and the Lead Technical Expert for the Governor’s Commission to Rebuild Texas. Dr. Brody’s research focuses on coastal environmental planning, spatial analysis, flood mitigation, climate change policy, and natural hazards mitigation. He has published numerous scientific articles on flood risk and mitigation, and recently authored the book, Rising Waters: The causes and consequences of flooding in the United States published by Cambridge University Press.
Dr. Brody teaches graduate courses in environmental planning, flood mitigation, and coastal resiliency. He has also worked in both the public and private sectors to help local coastal communities adopt flood mitigation plans. For more information, please visit www.tamug.edu/ctbs.
Gerald E. Galloway, PE, PhD is a Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, a Faculty Fellow of the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study Texas A&M University and a visiting professor at the A&M Galveston Campus. His teaching and research focus is on water resources policy, resilience, and disaster risk management under climate change. He serves as a consultant to several international, federal, state and non-governmental agencies and has been involved in water projects in the U.S., Europe, Asia and South America.
In 1993, he was assigned to the White House to lead the study of the Great Mississippi Flood of that year. He is currently a member of the Maryland Coast Smart Council. In 2014, he was appointed chair of an international panel of experts to examine the flooding threats to Florence, Italy and by the government of Singapore to a panel of experts advising on sea-level rise challenges. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Public Administration, and the National Academy of Construction, and a 38-year veteran of the U.S. Army who retired as a Brigadier General and Dean (Chief Academic Officer) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Media contacts: Keith Randall, [email protected], 979-845-4644, or Melissa Andreycheck, [email protected], 301-405-0292.