Stormwater Solutions Magazine Features Texas Flood Plan
Texas’ new flood plan, the first of its kind in the United States, shows how the state is better preparing communities across vastly diverse regions to reduce their risks to life and property.
Stormwater Solutions magazine recently explored the flood plan for a national audience in an article by Reem Zoun, Director of Flood Planning at the Texas Water Development Board, and Freese and Nichols’ stormwater engineering leaders Scott Hubley and Krista Bethune Melnar. Scott is a Stormwater Group Manager, and Krista is a National Stormwater Practice Leader.
Reem and Scott also covered the plan’s development and lessons learned in a video interview with Stormwater Solutions Editor-in-Chief Katie Johns.
Even before Hurricane Harvey in 2017 caused $143B in property damage and resulted in 89 lives lost, Texas had experienced multiple serious flooding events from various causes: increased rainfall amounts and intensity, climate variability, hurricanes and sea level rise. In 2019, the Texas Legislature directed the TWDB to produce a state flood plan and created a new fund to help communities pay for projects included in that plan.
The process consolidated 15 regional plans into a comprehensive document that the TWDB approved in August and delivered to the Legislature. The state plan includes more than $54 billion worth of actions that can reduce flood risk.
The authors write: 
“Thinking big and collaborating broadly, the river basin-based, bottom-up approach on flood planning is better preparing communities to reduce their risks to life and property. Beyond that, the effort has produced tools to improve floodplain management and policy recommendations that can guide state lawmakers. Just as important, the state flood plan will help set priorities for allocating billions of dollars of state and federal funds for local infrastructure investments — and incentivize essential future funding.” …
To learn more:
Read: Thinking big on flood planning: What to lean from Texas’ statewide approach