Determining the impact of new highway construction on nearby floodplains essential to community flood hazard preparedness
Part of the Great Basin Watershed, a high-desert valley, Carson City experiences flash flooding. Due to the Nevada Department of Transportation’s extension of the nearby interstate, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) needed to determine any changes to flood boundaries of the Voltaire and Sailman tributaries. FEMA engaged our professionals to remap floodplain boundaries to better represent flood risk in the area.
We used the US Environmental Protection Agency’s SWMM5 model to derive peak flood discharges, which we then inputted into the FLO-2D hydraulic model to simulate complex hydraulic interactions and diversions associated with the flat topography and shallow flooding. Using these model results, we developed proposed floodplain mapping to accurately represent flood risk and revised the area’s effective flood insurance rate map.
The updated floodplain maps will help educate the public on flooding risks and their potential effects on properties and insurance rates.
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