Tag: flooding

Quebec Flood Maps Will Get a New Framework Next Year

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
A side-by-side comparison of old and new flood zone maps from a Quebec government website.
Gouvernement du Québec

It seems as though the Quebec government has been in the process of updating its flood maps for the better part of the past decade (previously: Quebec’s Updated Flood Maps Prove Controversial; Quebec Flood Maps). But starting next March Quebec’s flood maps will adopt a new framework categorizing flood zones by risk (low, moderate, high, very high), with a special category for areas located near dams or flood protection structures. This page (in French) explains how the new maps—which aren’t yet available—will work. The upshot is that more homes in Quebec will find themselves in a flood zone (though fewer than was feared last year), but likely in the lowest-risk category.

Flooding in Rio Grande do Sul

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Porto Alegre on 8 May 2024 (Landsat 8/OLI)

Devastating floods in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state, have killed at least 95 people and displaced 150,000 more. NASA Earth Observatory posted the above Landsat 8 image of downtown Porto Alegre (population: 1.5 million), as well as MODIS images of the overflowing Jacuí River. CNN has before-and-after Maxar imagery of Porto Alegre.

The CBC on Inaccessible Flood Maps

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

As the CBC’s evening news program The National reports, flood maps can be incredibly hard to find, with even municipal maps requiring an NDA to view in some cases. Now this story focuses on Halifax, Nova Scotia in the wake of flash flooding this summer; the situation elsewhere in Canada may be quite different (Quebec’s flood maps, for example, are available online, though only in French).

The Aftermath of the Kakhovka Dam’s Destruction

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

A pair of Landsat images showing the drainage of the Kakhovka Reservoir in Ukraine after the Kakhovka Dam was breached on 6 June 2023.
Kakhovka Reservoir on 7 June 2022 (top) and 18 June 2023 (bottom). Landsat 8/OLI and Landsat 9/OLI-2, respectively. NASA Earth Observatory/USGS/Lauren Dauphin.

NASA Earth Observatory has before-and-after satellite imagery showing the impact of the destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam last month. The Kakhovka Reservoir is emptying out (above), the irrigation canals that relied on that reservoir are drying out, and there was flooding downriver of the dam in the immediate aftermath of the breach.

Flooding in Pakistan

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Satellite image of floods in the Sindh province of Pakistan, 30 Aug 2022
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

The satellite imagery of the flooding in Pakistan is insufficient to grasp how widespread the devastation is, unless you zoom out enough (which you can do at the MODIS page). The imagery focuses on the flood plain of the Indus River: it covers most of Sindh province and a good chunk of Baluchistan. See The Washington Post’s maps for perspective. The Earth Observatory and MODIS pages, as well as the CNN article, have before/after image sliders: Earth Observatory compares the situation to three weeks ago, the other two to last year.

Update, 1 Sept:

ESA

The ESA has released the above image based on Copernicus Sentinel-1 data. More than a third of Pakistan is now under water.

Update, 3 Sept: The Guardian has more before/after imagery.

Quebec’s Updated Flood Maps Prove Controversial

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Government of Quebec (screenshot)

In the wake of serious and devastating spring flooding in 2017 and 2019, the Quebec government issued proposed flood zone maps that marked areas where rebuilding and new construction would be put on hold. There was immediate pushback: as CBC News reported last month, the maps included substantial areas of small towns (such as, in my neck of the woods, the villages of Fort-Coulonge and Campbell’s Bay), or, in the case of Gatineau, areas that were not flooded in either 2017 or 2019 as well as major new developments. The mayor of Vaudreuil-Dorion suggested that the mapmakers forgot to correct for cloud cover. In the end, new maps were issued that removed substantial areas of Montreal from the flood zone, among other areas: some 20 percent of the 120,000 homes affected by the first set of maps were removed from the revised maps.

Previously: Quebec Flood Maps.

Quebec Flood Maps

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

In my neck of the woods we’ve been dealing with some pretty severe spring flooding. And as is often the case, existing flood maps are not up to handling the new normal imposed by climate change. Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, a community near Montreal, was hit hard by flooding this spring, but only two of the 800 flooded homes were in current maps’ flood zones. This isn’t an new situation; we had similar floods in 2017. Back then, CBC News reported that Montreal-area flood maps’ 20- and 100-year floodplains were exceeded by the then-current flood extent.

Fast forward to this spring. The flood maps for Montreal-area municipalities have been updated—they’re now based on LIDAR data from 2014 onward—but have not yet made public: they’ve yet to be approved by the municipalities or adopted by the province; nonetheless they’ve been put to use during the recent emergency. On the new maps, some 1,500 homes in Sainte-Marthe are part of the flood zone.

Mapping Disasters in America

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The Washington Post maps disasters in the United States, with a page that shows maps of flood warnings, tornadoes and hurricanes, extreme heat and cold (see above), wildfires, lightning, and earthquakes and volcanoes. In the wake of a natural disaster there’s usually someone suggesting that the victims are at fault for living in a disaster zone. The WaPost’s maps have an answer to that: “It turns out there is nowhere in the United States that is particularly insulated from everything.”

Mapping Natural Disasters in France

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

In response to the latest round of flash floods in France, The Local has a piece looking at natural disasters in France that points to a set of interactive maps from France Info (in French; page doesn’t work well in Safari) that show the number of natural disasters, by commune, since 1982, as well as the number of disasters due to flooding and drought. The maps indicate where the disaster hot spots are in France and (to some extent) where they aren’t: only 3.5 percent of French communes have never had a disaster declaration in that period. Sixty percent of the disasters were due to flooding; The Local also points to the Global Flood Map: zooming in sufficiently shows the zones for high and moderate risk of flooding. [Gretchen Peterson]

Looking Back at Hurricane Harvey’s Impact

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Here’s a CBS News gallery of before-and-after images showing the impact of flooding in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. The page is undated but was published on 1 September. [Dave Smith]

And, via CityLab, here are a set of maps from the Urban Institute that show the impact of Hurricane Harvey on Houston’s neighbourhoods, based on income levels, home ownership rates, accumulated-equity rates, all of which looking at the economic impact of the storm. “Harvey’s aftermath puts an enormous hurdle in front of all homeowners and renters but will be a particular setback for low-income, minority families recovering from the 2008 housing bust.”

Previously: Mapping Hurricane Harvey’s Impact.

Mapping Hurricane Harvey’s Impact

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Washington Post

The Washington Post maps rainfall and flooding levels in the Houston area.

The New York Times is collecting several maps on two web pages. The first page deals with subjects like rainfall, river level, current and historical hurricane tracks, damage reports, and cities and counties under evacuation orders. Maps on the second page look at Harvey’s impact on the Houston area.

Esri’s U.S. Flooding Public Information Map includes precipitation and flood warnings.

Kenneth Field critiques the National Weather Service’s decision to add more colours to their precipitation maps (see above). “Simply adding colours to the end of an already poor colour scheme and then making the class representing the largest magnitude the very lightest colour is weak symbology. But then, they’ve already used all the colours of the rainbow so they’re out of options!”

FEMA Flood Maps Don’t Account for Future Sea Level Rise

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

NPR last month, reporting on a problem with FEMA’s flood insurance maps: they’re not keeping up with reality. “FEMA’s insurance maps are based on past patterns of flooding. Future sea level rise—which is expected to create new, bigger flood zones—is not factored in. So some communities are doing the mapping themselves. Like Annapolis, the state capital of Maryland.” [Leventhal]

Louisiana Flooding: NASA Animation of Accumulated Rainfall

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

louisiana-floods

NASA Earth Observatory: “Days of intense rainfall in August 2016 led to widespread flooding in southern Louisiana, as rivers swelled high above their banks and many crested at record-high levels. […] The animation above shows satellite-based measurements of the rainfall as it accumulated over the southern United States. Specifically, it shows rainfall totals every three hours over the span of 72 hours from August 12-14, 2016. These rainfall totals are regional, remotely sensed estimates, and local amounts can be significantly higher when measured from the ground.”

New Year’s Flooding in the Midwest

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

[sciba leftsrc=”https://www.maproomblog.com/xq/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/new-year-flooding-1.jpg” leftlabel=”8 Dec 2015″ rightsrc=”https://www.maproomblog.com/xq/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/new-year-flooding-2.jpg” rightlabel=”1 Jan 2016″ mode=”horizontal” width=””]

These two Landsat images illustrate the extent of flooding along the Wabash and Illinois Rivers at the end of last year, as 6-10 inches of rain fell over the midwestern United States. The image from 8 December 2015, above left, shows normal water levels; the image from 1 January  2016, above right, shows the rivers in flood. Use the slider to compare the two views. Original image. [via]

Alberta Flood Maps

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

This is a list of maps related to the flooding in southern Alberta (Calgary, Canmore, Bragg Creek, High River, Okotoks, etc.). This list will be added to as needed. Feel free to contribute additional links in the comments.

Update, 10:15 PM:

Update, June 22 at 8:25 AM: