Understand Your Flood Risk

Woman raising hand with a question at community meeting
Back to top

Floodplain Mapping

Back to top

Help for Communities to Understand Their Flooding (Help CUT Flooding)

If your community is in need of technical resources, including mapping and engineering analysis, in order to identify possible solutions to mitigate impacts from future flood events please see the bulletin for requesting help from HSEM and our state and federal partners. 

A brief questionnaire can be completed here to provide additional information for review.

Back to top

Don’t Underestimate Your Risk

Damages Outside of Recognized Zones

Significant flood damage can and does happen outside of mapped floodplains. Some rivers and streams have no formal National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) flood plain map, and those that do can still see flooding outside the 100-year floodplain. Flood plains also change over time. Development upstream can change runoff patterns and impact downstream flooding. Consider your risk carefully, even if you aren’t required to have flood insurance.

Chances of Being Flooded

There is a 26% chance of flooding over the life of a 30-yr mortgage for properties in recognized flood zones. Recognized flood risk areas will flood at some point.

Understanding Your Consequences

The best way to understand the consequences of flooding is to see them. Many similar videos can be found on YouTube for regional areas.

Flood Risk Infrastructure

Maintenance of flood risk infrastructure is key in maintaining the risk reduction provided by dams and levees. Living behind levees or downstream of a dam provides a unique type of risk.

The National Levee Database (NLD) is a database of levees which were constructed by USACE or are involved in the USACE PL 84-99 program (not all levees are presented in this database).

Back to top

State of Iowa Hazard Mitigation Plan

This document identifies recognized hazards of many types throughout Iowa; specifically Section 3 of the document can be used to identify your hazard types.

Back to top

Get Involved

One of the most important things you can do to better understand flood risk is to get involved. Ask your community and representatives questions about local flood risk and steps take to address risk. The Iowa State University Extension and Outreach program has detailed information about flooding in the state of Iowa.

Floodplain management is a requirement of the local government and is supported by state and federal agencies.

Other Data Sources

The National Weather Service (NWS) Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service provides current and historic information about flood stages at several sites throughout Iowa.

Ice Jams create natural dams which cause localized flooding. Ice Jam flooding is characterized by rapidly increasing river stages that can be significantly higher than normal.

Back to top

Disasters Impact you Physically, Emotionally & Financially

Health Risk

Emotional Impact of Flooding

The Financial Cost of Flooding

Agricultural Impacts

Levee Safety

Back to top