FLOOD00015

• County: Statewide
• Title: A Unified National Program for Floodplain Management
• Date: 3/1/1986
• Prepared For: US
• Prepared By: FEMA
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Historic FEMA Regulatory Floodplain Information

Resources Council in 1979 revised its 1976 unified program
by mOdifying the conceptual framework and the recommenda-
tions. This document updates the 1979 document to re-
flect floodplain management progress and modifies asso-
ciated recommendations.

Since House Document 465 was issued in 1966, State and
local governments have increased their awareness of
floodplain problems and exercised additional responsibility
for flood prone lands. Each State has taken some kind of
enabling action allowing local communities to establish
floodplain management regulations. More than 17,500 of
approximately 20,000 identified flood prone communities
have adopted such regulations.

Floodplain management is concerned with the future role
of the floodplain as an integral part of a community and
of an entire natural river, shore, or coastal system.
The list of floodplain uses and management purposes is
extensive. These uses include provision for recreation,
fish and wildlife habitat, navigation, agriculture,
housing, and municipal and industrial water supply.
Multiple uses are common, with some uses being incompatible
with each other. However, with each use, consideration
of losses of lives, property, and natural values is ever
present, as are the consequences of adjustment to these
losses. Thus, the focus of floodplain management is a
wise choice among uses competing for a limited number of
locations. Many of these locations are subject to losses
that could result in serious disruption of floodplain
values. An accounting must be made for the consequences
of various adjustments to development in these floodplain
impacting locations.

Coastal and riverine floodplains include widespread areas
of natural hazard that are present in thousands of commu-
nities. Floodplains have been and continue to be under
pressure for change to more intensive uses. Pressure to
intensify floodplain use is increasing as desirable un-
developed land becomes less abundant, especially near
urban areas. At the same time, there is increasing re-
cognition that the natural and beneficial values served by
the floodplain represent valuable environmental resources.

The present state of floodplain use and development derives
from the period in which full range of impacts of uncon-
trolled growth were poorly understood. Flood losses are
a conscious concern primarily during and shortly after a
flood experience. The normal reaction to flood loss has
been to attempt to control or modify the flood and to

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