FLOOD11043

• County: Statewide
• Basin: Statewide
• Title: Map Modernization Implementation Plan for Colorado
• Date: 8/1/2002
• Prepared For: FEMA Region 8
• Prepared By: CWCB, UDFCD
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Educational/Technical/Reference Information

Mapping Plan for Colorado

9.0 Overall Colorado Recommendations

The CWCB believes that addressing all of the mapping needs identified in this plan will take at least 6
years. The number of years it takes to meet Colorado's floodplain mapping needs will depend on the
following factors:

. The difference between the estimated costs of mapping contained in this report and the
actual costs;
. The policy decisions made about which stream reaches to map, which map panels to
update, and which stream reaches and map panels to leave alone within any given county
(how complete does the mapping for any county have to be);
. The policy decisions made about mapping every county in Colorado vs. mapping only
higher priority counties; and
. The policy decisions made about mapping floodplains for communities not participating
in the NPIP.

This report presents a complete picture of floodplain mapping needs in Colorado, assuming that all
identified needs would be addressed. The following overall recommendations are made with that
assumption in mind, while recognizing that some very important budgetary and policy questions are still
to be resolved.

CWCB staff has set a tentative goal of beginning to prepare PIS' for 10 counties out of the top 16 in the
first year of Map Modernization funding. The "top 16 counties" would all be equal candidates for first-
year work. The CWCB and the Urban Drainage & Flood Control District would select the 10 counties
out of that pool of potential candidates with the greatest likelihood of success, based on funding, GIS base
map and topographic map availability, staff commitment and similar factors. Those counties out of that
pool of 16 counties for which mapping was not started in the first year would become part of the pool of
16 candidates for the second year and so on.

With that kind of management strategy in mind, the overall recommendations presented below are
divided into four groups of 16 counties. This does not mean that the CWCB proposes a four-year
program. In fact we believe it will take longer than four years to meet Colorado's mapping needs.
Instead, the recommendations provided below simply provide four distinct pools of candidate counties,
ranging from the highest priority counties to the lowest priority counties, as measured by the CWCB
methodology.

9.1 First Priority Counties

The 16 "first priority" counties are those counties that received the highest scores from the CWCB
prioritization methodology. Some characteristics that many of these counties share in common are:

. Large population
. Rapid growth
. A history of severe floods
. Impacts to watersheds due to the wildfires of 2002

The CWCB is confident that from this pool of 16 counties, a group of 10 counties can be selected that
will provide Colorado with a good first-year start to Map Modernization. First priority counties are listed
in Table 9.1 and shown in Top Ranked Counties, Figure 10.

12/26/2002

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