Flood risk management (FRM) needs a transformation. This practice of FRM, or flood mitigation…whatever is clearest in invoking the community of practice, needs direction and vision. We cannot sit, and be stuck, in the needed work towards flood resilience. The mindset needs to be shared across the federal-state-tribal-community-individual level.

Think of this vision as building on a mindset. In the book, The Digital Mindset, the authors Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley, describes what it takes to thrive in an age where these three things have advanced: Data, Algorithms, and Computational Power. They point out that the digital transformation happens at the intersection of these three things. A digital mindset is the set of approaches we use to make sense of data and technology. The mindset means we are redefining fundamental ways of approaching collaboration, computation, and change. The field of flood risk management can use this to strengthen a vision for how to reach resilience.

Data, Algorithms, and Computation Power

Flood risk management has had advancements in all three.

With all the digital transformation in these 3 areas. So: Why are we not more resilient?

When we look at the history of flood risk management in the context of this digital transformation, we see acceleration in technology. With a bit of thought, we might conclude: We should be further along on flood mitigation.

We need to get at the heart of what is holding us back.

Hurricane Katrina and the levee failures impacted USACE and FEMA. The event caused a cultural shift, and we are still seeing the growth of risk management in the agencies. USACE has continued advancing databases on risk, like the National Levee Database. And in 2022, the National Structure Inventory has become a great resource to prioritize actions. FEMA communicates avidly in new ways, such as looking at flood risk during the period of a homeowner’s mortgage. The agencies use a systems approach, including watershed planning. We have had some success.

What else needs to be done?

“The digital mindset means we are redefining fundamental ways of approaching collaboration, computation, and change,” wrote Leonardi and Neeley.

The FRM digital mindset we have had is not enough. We need the mindset to affect change in flood risk management. So, I believe we need to use the products of the FRM digital mindset better.

While at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, I saw and used these tools daily, and in 2011, I was privileged to be assigned to be a Lead Silver Jackets Coordinator for two states. This was about interagency collaboration following the states’ lead in flood hazard mitigation. To realize the change to flood resilience, we need to collaborate better cross-sector partnerships, and we need to collaborate with the public, engaging them in ways that help them understand the possible measures.

We have state teams collaborating now, but we need to change the intensity and how we do this work. We need innovative partnerships between those doing economic development plans and those hazard mitigation planners, floodplain managers, and emergency managers that get stuck recovering from disasters. We need watershed-level thinking, and I think that has double meaning. First, we need agricultural producers to change how they think about their watersheds. Secondly, all of this is a watershed event in the needed change in collaboration. Take a look around my website if you’re ever feeling stuck on how, because the tools we need to redefine our ways of planning and doing this are shared here. Applying the tools from the digital transformation in FRM to more collaborative, cross-sector planning work. This is how we will get at the heart of what is holding us back.