Spatial Sciences Laboratory

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE), Galveston District, must evaluate the potential impact of the 500 year flood in the many urbanized areas. As flood control structures are designed by the COE, economic studies to determine the potential impact on each structure in case of flooding must be done. The valuation of the impact, typically done by COE, requires numerous data sources that are typically not in digital form, requires months or even years to develop, and is very costly. Additionally, these types of studies may have to be done more than once since the local flood control agency must approve the COE plan. The Spatial Sciences Laboratory began working with the COE Galveston District to develop a methodology that would reduce the time and cost for developing the databases to conduct the economic valuations. The thrust of this activity was to develop a methodology that would take advantage of digital data that currently exists, as well as develop a methodology that can be repeated for any other flood studies similar to this one.