This Tool Lets You See Flood Risk to Your Own Home
By
Simone Maloz, Campaign Director
Want to know more about flood risk in your own backyard, zeroing in on your very address? Want to know more about Louisiana Coastal Master Plan projects that will help reduce that risk? Then check out the best kept secret in coastal Louisiana: the Master Plan Data Viewer launched by the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.
The easy-to-use viewer displays information on coastal land change, flood risk and impacts to communities. This innovative, online tool provides residents with access to the state’s best information about how Louisiana’s coast may change in the future, as well as resources to make communities and properties safer.
The viewer uses data produced for the 2017 Coastal Master Plan and shows current land loss and flood risk, as well as projections 50 years into the future. Also displayed are the 2017 Coastal Master Plan protection and restoration projects that offer land-building and risk-reduction benefits across Louisiana’s coast.
Flood risk in 50 years without the Coastal Master Plan
On the homepage of the website, you can enter a specific address or view the entire Louisiana coast. Through an easy-to-navigate toolbar, you can click on land change, flood risk, socio-economic factors, impacts from flooding, and other resources. You can delve into different sea level rise scenarios, flood events (50, 100 or 500-year) and impacts with or without the implementation of master plan projects. There is information explaining what a 100 or 500-year flood event actually means, as well as a Frequently Asked Questions page to assist in using the site.
Restoration Projects in the 2017 Coastal Master Plan.
This information is also integrated with additional coast-wide data on infrastructure and other elements of the built environment to show how flood risk impacts communities. The information can be used to better understand current coastal flood risk and how this risk may change in the future. In addition, a variety of resources are provided to enable homeowners and business owners to take steps toward reducing their flood risk.
The viewer is intended to support residents, communities, local governments, state agencies, non-profits and community advocates in coastal planning and hazard mitigation efforts; and we believe it does just that. But don’t take our word for it… check it out for yourself!
To learn more and explore the viewer, visit: cims.coastal.louisiana.gov/masterplan
As the executive director of Restore or Retreat, Terrebonne Parish native Simone Maloz works daily to advance projects and policy to address the needs of the disappearing Louisiana coast, specifically across the Barataria and Terrebonne Basins. Ms. Maloz was appointed by Governor Jindal to serve on the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation in the summer of 2014. She is working with her partners at the Restore the Mississippi River Delta Coalition to ensure Louisiana remains a prosperous place where her children – and their children – can live, work and play.