SCC-PG: Flood Hazard Management & Practitioner Information Network for Florida Coastal Communities

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

Florida ranks first in the nation for estimated potential residential exposure to hurricane storm surge damage. Fundamental to pre-disaster planning and post-disaster recovery activities is the availability of integrated datasets that can help communities better understand the type and quantity of affordable housing stock at risk. However, oftentimes, even when available, these datasets may be outdated, incomplete, not shared across local departmental jurisdictions, or need significant processing to become more useful for planning and recovery activities. There is an urgent need for practitioners to be able to leverage each other’s information, skills, and experience to develop forward-looking strategies to create a more resilient affordable housing system. This Planning Grant project creates a Flood Hazard Management and Practitioner Information Network for Florida Coastal Communities to establish the foundation for future pre- and post-disaster management as well as strengthening technological and social/planning issues related to coastal communities. This project will focus on co-producing a more comprehensive description of the problem and the challenges to creating more resilient affordable housing, as well as co-producing a process to develop solutions that are both effective and useful to the community. To seed this new Practitioner Information Network, University of Florida will collaborate with a county and a Regional Planning Council in Florida which can be scaled across broader regions. This Smart & Connected Communities Planning Grant project creates a Flood Hazard Management and Practitioner Information Network for Florida Coastal Communities to establish the foundation for future pre- and post-disaster management as well as strengthening technological and social/planning issues related to coastal communities. This project answers integrative research challenges under three Research Trusts: (1) Data and Information: Creating a Neighborhood Flood Hazard typologies; (2) Increasing Information Access - Smart and Connected Information Infrastructure; and (3) Connecting Communities - Flood Hazard Management and Practitioner Information Network. Among others, this project develops and tests novel scalable methods to seamlessly acquire, validate, and transfer data related to three pilot communities in a county’s residential structures’ Lowest Floor Elevation and other pertinent characteristics that determines flood hazard to a Housing Information System. Scalable methods include image-based processing via publicly available street views and data gathered via crowd source. Through two community-based participatory workshops, this project co-produces a more comprehensive description of the problem and the challenges to creating more resilient affordable housing as well as a process to develop solutions that are both effective and useful to the community. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.