Introduction

Floods are the most common and most expensive natural hazard in the United States. The United States experienced ten separate billion-dollar natural disaster events in 2019 as of October, including five severe storms, two tropical cyclones, and three flooding events 1 and faced $260 billion cumulatively in flood damages from 1980-2013. 2 Not only do these damages harm the affected communities’ livelihoods, but the cost of recovering from these damages is shared among federal, state, and local governments in the form of disaster assistance, insurance payouts, and other recovery measures at the expense of American taxpayers. Moreover, vulnerable populations—such as lower income, racial minority, nonEnglish speaking communities—often experience the most hurt and the slowest recovery. 3 Furthermore, the frequency and intensity of flooding events is expected to increase due to the effects of climate change. 4 Particularly vulnerable to these impacts are Americans living in coastal states. The Fourth National Climate Assessment predicts that “lasting damage to coastal property and infrastructure driven by sea level rise and storm surge is expected to lead to financial losses for individuals, businesses, and communities.” 5 Coastal communities have an urgent need to accurately understand their flooding risk in order to prepare for and respond to the next flooding disaster.

The primary federal policy used to manage flood risk in the United States is the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). However, this program has suffered from longstanding financial troubles and has been ineffective in achieving its stated goals of discouraging development in risky areas and improving the long-term resilience of flood-exposed communities. Congress has made a number of attempts to reform the NFIP, including the 2012 Biggert Waters Act. These reforms have not lasted due in large part to a complicated mix of local government, development, and homeowner interests. Indeed, NFIP authorization is a perennial authorization battle that often includes piecemeal reform that does not solve the underlying financial troubles of the program. Furthermore, these efforts have not contributed to meaningful long-term sustainability of the nation’s approach to managing coastal flood hazards.

We instead ask what other models besides insurance and NFIP might be used to address coastal flood hazards. These recommendations are built to complement rather than replace NFIP. Our intention is to provide policymakers with basic blueprints and best practices from other risk management regimes that might improve a federal coastal flood management approach currently dominated by NFIP.

The report proceeds as follows. Chapter 1 gives background on the shortcomings of the NFIP and this report’s decision to focus on other policy tools. Chapter 2 proposes a new interagency approach, which we term the National Flood Hazards Reduction Program, drawing on lessons learned from existing programs on earthquake and windstorm hazards. Chapter 3 covers land management practices and provides recommendations for conducting voluntary buyouts. Chapter 4 covers improvements to technical mitigation and infrastructure. This report envisions that Chapter 3 and 4’s recommendations could benefit from the proposed NFHRP but may also be pulled in an “off the shelf” manner to improve the status quo without embarking on large-scale regulatory reform.