Weekly Data Story
Imagine it is a beautiful sunny day and there is not a cloud in the sky for as far as the eye can see. The perfect day to explore the Chesapeake Bay’s largest port city – Baltimore, MD. Your exploration is quickly thrown for a loop when you encounter a flooded street. As you detour around you see more flooded areas and getting to your destination, the inner harbor, has become a hassle. This experience is nothing new to the nearly 600,000 people who call this city their home.
Climate Change is already impacting Baltimore, like so many other coastal cities. The scenario above is a phenomenon known as “Sunny Day Flooding” and is the result of high tide flooding and sea level rise. NOAA reported in 2020 that most coastal areas are seeing these events happen more frequently with some places experiencing a 75% acceleration of Sunny Day Flooding.
As Baltimore updates its various plans for the future, it is important for all those involved to understand where flooding events are happening. FEMA‘s flood maps are a good resource for quantifying and understanding historical flooding. However, these datasets do not provide any information about the future projected risk of flooding. That means that there are areas outside FEMA flood zones that will flood on a regular basis. In an effort to capture this information, Baltimore City is encouraging folks to report flooding with the Maryland MyCoast program. This program is web application that allows a person to record their location and attach a photo using their mobile. The initiative began in 2021, and to date has over 20 submissions for Baltimore. We think it is important to promote this initiative because the data generated could be highly beneficial to produce data models that eventually help city residents. By submitting flooding events it helps to learn where the flooding maps are falling short and potentially prioritize efforts to keep roads unobstructed, homes dry, and businesses open.
Authors: Ryan Kmetz & Jose Pillich
Partners: IQSpatial
