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Estimated floodplain map for the conterminous United States

Metadata Updated: May 2, 2021

Understanding the relationship between flood inundation and floodplains is critical for ecosystem and community health and well-being, as well as targeting floodplain and riparian restoration. Many communities in the United States, particularly those in rural areas, lack inundation maps due to the high cost of flood modeling. Only 60% of the conterminous United States has Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) through the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This EnviroAtlas dataset provides an estimate of the 100-year floodplain for the conterminous United States at 30-meter resolution to fill the gaps in the FIRM. The model hit rate for the CONUS was 0.79 compared to the FIRM, indicating that the model captured 79% of the 100-year floodplain identified by FEMA. This product provides complete coverage for the CONUS by identifying floodplains in areas without FIRMs, while also identifying floodplains in tributaries sometimes excluded by FEMA. This dataset was produced by the US EPA to support research and online mapping activities related to EnviroAtlas. EnviroAtlas (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas) allows the user to interact with a web-based, easy-to-use, mapping application to view and analyze multiple ecosystem services for the contiguous United States. The dataset is available as downloadable data (https://edg.epa.gov/data/Public/ORD/EnviroAtlas) or as an EnviroAtlas map service. Additional descriptive information about each attribute in this dataset can be found in its associated EnviroAtlas Fact Sheet (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-fact-sheets) or journal article (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.07.353). This dataset is useful for evaluating the potential value of ecosystem services provided by floodplains. The overall goal of EnviroAtlas is to employ and develop the best available science to map indicators of ecosystem services production, demand, and drivers for the nation. These data are not meant to replace or supplement FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps.

This dataset is associated with the following publication: Woznicki, S., J. Baynes, S. Panlasigui, M. Mehaffey, and A. Neale. Development of a spatially complete floodplain map of the conterminous United States using random forest. SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT. Elsevier BV, AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS, 647: 942-953, (2018).

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

References

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.07.353

Dates

Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date May 2, 2021

Metadata Source

Harvested from EPA ScienceHub

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date May 2, 2021
Publisher U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD)
Maintainer
Identifier https://doi.org/10.23719/1503085
Data Last Modified 2018-06-04
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 020:00
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Harvest Object Id 57694870-5e99-4d3d-9601-ed736bef5d1c
Harvest Source Id 04b59eaf-ae53-4066-93db-80f2ed0df446
Harvest Source Title EPA ScienceHub
License https://pasteur.epa.gov/license/sciencehub-license.html
Program Code 020:097
Publisher Hierarchy U.S. Government > U.S. Environmental Protection Agency > U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD)
Related Documents https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.07.353
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash d4f56f1b82062b050344804ae4e105eb43b5be62
Source Schema Version 1.1

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