Review of Changes to the Policy for Flood Risk Analysis and Mapping

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maintains guidelines and standards to support the Risk Mapping, Assessment and Planning (Risk MAP) Program.

These guidelines and standards define the specific implementation of the statutory and regulatory requirements for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). They also outline the performance of Flood Risk Projects, processing of Letters of Map Change (LOMCs), and related Risk MAP activities. More information is available at: www.fema.gov/guidelines-and-standards-flood-risk-analysis-and-mapping.

FEMA issues updates for the Risk MAP guidelines and standards on an annual basis. This overall annual cycle has been delayed three months and is now planned for February 2019. This notice provides information on an off-cycle policy update that will rescind 1 standard and revise 1 standard associated with Coastal Barrier Resources System (CBRS) data. This update is being done in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to remove potentially outdated CBRS information from the FEMA Maps and switch to using the authoritative, dynamically updated digital CBRS boundaries provided by USFWS. The proposed changes are:

• SID 170: Proposing to rescind, reflecting that CBRS data will no longer be shown on FEMA products
• SID 356: Proposing to revise the requirements in the FIRM Panel Technical Reference with respect to CBRS areas which are no longer being shown on FEMA products.

FEMA intends to publish these changes as a part of a November 2018 update to the Policy for Flood Risk Analysis and Mapping[1]. The draft updates are being made available for public review to provide an opportunity for comment prior to incorporation into the policy.

The proposed changes are listed below with the Standard Identification Number (SID #), primary keywords, implementation, current version of the standard (if applicable) and the proposed updates or revisions.  The implementation approach for these standards has been chosen to avoid any cost impacts on work underway