A Faster and Economical Approach to Floodplain Mapping Using Soil Information

Flood inundation maps play a key role in assessment and mitigation of potential flood hazards. However, owing to high costs associated with the conventional flood mapping methods, many communities in the United States lack flood inundation maps. The objective of this study is to develop and examine an economical alternative approach to floodplain mapping using widely available soil survey geographic (SSURGO) database. In this study, floodplain maps are developed for the entire state of Indiana, and some counties in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Washington states by identifying flood-prone soil map units based on their attributes. For validation, the flood extents obtained from SSURGO database are compared with the extents from other floodplain maps such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued flood insurance rate maps (FIRMs), flood extents observed during past floods, and flood maps derived using digital elevation models. In general, SSURGO-based floodplain maps (SFMs) are largely in agreement with other flood inundation maps. Specifically, the floodplain extents from SFMs cover 78-95% area compared to FIRMs and observed flood extents. Thus, albeit with a slight loss in accuracy, the SSURGO approach offers an economical and fast alternative for floodplain mapping. In particular, it has potentially high utility in areas where no detailed flood studies have been conducted.