This series includes three webinars:

1. BRIC and FMA Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) on Tues., Oct. 31, 2023, from 2 -3:30 p.m. Eastern Time: This webinar will be the first review of the FY 2023 NOFOs for BRIC and FMA. This webinar is for general applicants and subapplicants. Topics will include:
   • Review of the BRIC and FMA program priorities for the FY 2023 grant cycle.
   • Overview of the types of funding available in each program.
2. BRIC and FMA Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) for Tribal Governments on Thurs., Nov. 2, 2023, from 2 -3:30 p.m. Eastern Time: This webinar will be a review of the FY 2023 NOFOs for BRIC and FMA tailored for tribal applicants. This webinar is for tribal applicants and subapplicants. Topics will include:
   • Review of the BRIC and FMA program priorities for the FY 2023 grant cycle.
   • Overview of the types of funding available in each program.
3. BRIC and FMA Application Pitfalls on Tues., Nov. 7, 2023, from 2 -3:30 p.m. Eastern Time: This webinar will address common grant application errors and how to avoid them when applying for BRIC and FMA grant funding. This webinar is for general applicants and subapplicants.

Upon registering for any of these live webinars, participants will automatically be registered for all three. Calendar invitations can be downloaded to your calendars after registration.

The post FEMA to Host BRIC and FMA Notices of Funding Opportunities Webinar Series first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

The post FEMA requesting comments on establishing a deductible for Public Assistance Program first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

ASFPM submitted comments Jan. 6, 2017. The comments conclude that Congress will need to reauthorize the NFIP in 2017 and that more proposals will be considered relating to the role of private flood insurance. ASFPM believes that there is an appropriate role for private flood insurance in the overall scheme of the NFIP and also believes that whatever that role is, it can co-exist with a
strong NFIP. Read the full comments here.

The post ASFPM submits comments to federal register regarding private flood insurance first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

The
Corps of Engineers has issued draft that outlines how it will implement the new
flood risk management standard to protect federal taxpayer investments in
federal actions. The Corps will do this not with rules in the Federal Register,
but by amending internal guidance they have used for years to implement the old
EO 11988. They have put the draft
EC out for comments, which are due to USACE on or before Jan. 30, 2017.

ASFPM
is asking all of you who wish to provide feedback for consideration into
ASFPM’s comments to please submit to either Executive Director Chad Berginnis (cberginnis@floods.org)
or Director Emeritus Larry Larson (Larry@floods.org)
by Jan. 25. If you can, we urge you to submit your own comments to the Corps as
well. The more the better!

Here
is link to CFR with summary and other data on Engineering Circular process.

Unlike
FEMA and HUD, which have opted to use the freeboard approach to establish the
elevation and horizontal extent of the FFRMS floodplain, USASE indicates on
page 8 of the draft EC, “All Corps actions subject to the FFRMS will utilize
the [Climate-Informed Science Approach], unless compelling justification for
using one of the other approaches is developed and documented”. It goes on to
say that decision must be approved up the line.

The
draft EC indicates CISA
will be calculated using Appendix H of the guidelines issued Oct. 8, 2015
for use by all federal agencies. The guidelines discuss use of SLR estimates in
coastal areas, and the need to determine new hydrology in riverine areas taking
into account projected increases in rainfall and land use changes. It
acknowledges FEMA is not yet mapping future conditions, including coastal
erosion as required by BW-12, and it provides links to a variety of resources
to assist agencies in making CISA determinations and promotes determining local
conditions (or use of local information where appropriate). Appendix H starts
on page 57 and goes to end of doc. It’s good on coastal, but weaker on the
process to use to determine CISA in riverine areas.

BTW, all of this info in on FFRMS page of our web site, which has a link on
front page. We will update that web page with the Corps draft EC info. Learn
more here
on ASFPM’s FFRMS page.

The post ASFPM Requests Member Comments on Corps’ Draft FFRMS Implementation Guidance first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

“The Conservation Reserve Program is an extremely popular voluntary program that offers producers and landowners a wide variety of opportunities to prevent erosion, protect wildlife habitat and reduce nutrient runoff,” said Vilsack. “With the program close to the legal enrollment limit of 24 million acres, USDA has been working to use all of the tools at our disposal to maximize benefits by combining multiple soil, water and wildlife objectives in the areas where it is needed most.”

Vilsack unveiled a new conservation initiative known as Clean Lakes, Estuaries and Rivers (CLEAR), which will add new tools to CRP that can help to improve water quality. CLEAR will assist landowners with the cost of building bioreactors and saturated buffers that filter nitrates and other nutrients from tile-drained cropland.

Early estimates indicate that CLEAR could help to reduce nitrate runoff by as much as 40 percent over traditional conservation methods. CLEAR may cover up to 90 percent of the cost to install these new practices through incentives and cost-share. These new methods are especially important in areas where traditional buffers have not been enough to prevent nutrients from reaching bodies of water.

USDA will also add an additional 1.1 million acres to a number of key CRP practices that are critically important to wildlife and conservation. These include 700,000 acres for State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement (SAFE) efforts, which restore high-priority wildlife habitat tailored to a specific state’s needs. In addition to SAFE, 300,000 acres will be added to target wetlands restoration that are nature’s water filters and 100,000 acres for pollinator habitat that support 30 percent of agricultural production.

The continued strong demand for CRP combined with the limited acreage available for enrollment and lower land rental rates, allows USDA to modify certain program components without affecting the integrity of the program. Signing incentives are being reduced by $25 per acre on certain practices for fiscal year 2018 enrollments (incentives are currently between $100 and $150 per acre) and a cap on the maximum soil rental rate is being instituted for Continuous CRP at $300 per acre. The savings from these changes are being reinvested back in CRP, including the additional acres for SAFE, pollinator habitat and wetlands restoration.

To learn more about FSA’s conservation programs, visit www.fsa.usda.gov/conservation or contact your local FSA office. To find your local FSA office, visit https://offices.usda.gov.

Throughout the Obama Administration, USDA has generated thousands of critical partnerships to conserve and protect our natural resources on working landscapes, while enrolling a record number of acres in conservation programs. Seventy-percent of the nation’s land is owned and tended to privately, and America’s farmers, ranchers and landowners have willingly stepped up to address the growing impacts of a changing climate. With USDA’s support, they are working to implement voluntary practices that improve air and water quality, prevent soil erosion and create and protect wildlife habitat. Since 2009, USDA has invested more than $29 billion to help producers make conservation improvements, working with as many as 500,000 farmers, ranchers and landowners to protect land and water on over 400 million acres nationwide. Read more about USDA’s record conservation outcomes under this Caring for our Land, Air and Water: Preserving Precious Natural Resources forTomorrow.

The post USDA Announces New Conservation Opportunities to Improve Water Quality and Restore Wildlife Habitat first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

FEMA’s Federal Insurance and
Mitigation Administration updated the Guidance and Standards that it uses in
its flood mapping and risk analysis efforts.There are six revised standards,
three new standards and one rescinded standard in this maintenance cycle in
addition to a number of updated guidance and technical reference documents.

Several of these updates to Risk
MAP guidance and technical references begin implementing recommendations from
the Technical Mapping Advisory Council’s 2015 recommendations. TMAC-related
updates include requirements for reporting the accuracy of elevation data used,
and guidance on selecting engineering models. FEMA also enhanced the
standards and guidance development process and updated FEMA Policy #FP
204-078-1 to address the TMAC recommendation to consider the cost of
implementation for new requirements and address the costs consistently.

The updated standards address
requirements for emergency operation plans for levee accreditation, clarify
requirements for incorporating Letters Of Map Revisions into map updates,
update requirements for processing Physical Map Revisions update Notice to
Users requirements, update requirements for flood risk product automation,
update distribution requirements for Flood Insurance Study reports, and
formalize several standards for removal of the special flood hazard area
designation by letter consistent with current practice.

FEMA conducted a public review of
the draft standards earlier this year, and regularly updates these guidance and
technical reference documents to ensure ongoing improvements in its flood
mapping and risk analysis efforts. The actual standards and related guidance
are available at www.fema.gov/guidelines-and-standards-flood-risk-analysis-and-mapping.
The posting of guidance documents and technical references to the FEMA.gov sitewilltake
a few more weeks until all the publishing reviews are completed.

The post FEMA Issues Latest Update to Flood Risk Analysis and Mapping Standards first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

As we have done for more than 40 years, ASFPM seeks to partner with the new administration, members of Congress and federal agencies to improve and create policies and programs that will make our nation more resilient to floods. Here are our top nine priority action items, many of which align with some of the administration’s top themes such as investing in water and environmental infrastructure, promoting community/public safety and keeping local economies strong and resilient.

Read the full paper, titled, “Flood Risk Management in America:
Reducing taxpayer costs and building economically stable communities.”

The post ASFPM reaches out to the Trump Administration transition team first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

Oct. 31, 2016 at 10 a.m. EDT by Amy Luers and Mike Kuperberg

Summary: A new beta online consultative service will help communities find, use and understand information, tools and programs to support their climate-resilience needs.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is announcing the launch of a public-private collaboration designed to address this need. A diverse set of private, governmental, academic and nonprofit collaborators are launching a beta version of the Resilience Dialogues, an online service that allows community leaders to engage in facilitated, expedited and tailored consultations with scientists, resilience practitioners and other subject-matter experts.
Communities across the nation and around the world are increasingly seeking to develop and implement strategies that enhance their resilience to the impacts of a changing climate. Effective climate-resilience strategies require place-based and sector-specific scientific information on potential risks and opportunities posed by increasing climate variability and change. The Obama Administration has worked extensively with state, local and tribal decision makers, businesses, nonprofit and philanthropic entities to develop climate-information products and technical assistance. Given the number and diversity of technical and programmatic resources now available, communities often struggle to know which resources are most relevant to them, what information to use, and how best to use scientific information to manage climate risks and inform investments and other decisions.
The Resilience Dialogues service was developed over the past year through a collaborative co-design process among federal agencies, local governments and civil society. The service uses an online platform, developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Climate CoLab, to provide customized consultation to communities seeking support in climate assessment and resilience planning. It builds on the proven success of online consultation services in other fields, including medicine and education.
The Resilience Dialogues is a public-private collaboration led by a team of climate-resilience practitioners from federal agencies and civil society. It will be co-managed by the American Geophysical Union and U.S. Global Change Research Program.
In the spring of 2016, the Resilience Dialogues team ran a series of pilots with five communities: Coral Gables, FL; Dubuque, IA; Knoxville, TN; Minneapolis, MN; and the Mid-America Regional Council/Kansas City Metro Area, MO. Scientists and other subject matter experts from more than 22 public and private organizations worked with these communities in a set of facilitated online dialogues. These dialogues helped each community define its own resilience challenges; explore the economic, social and environmental risks of increasing climate variability and change; and identify the resources that can be applied to address on-the-ground challenges. The Resilience Dialogues beta version is based on the successes and lessons learned from these initial pilots.
This beta service is being rolled out with the support of the Kresge Foundation and in coordination with a number of community-based networks. The service will initially be available to communities in these networks, with the goal moving forward to expand the service to all communities interested in participating in a dialogue. Interested communities and leaders can submit their interest in participation by visiting the Resilience Dialogues website.
Explore this new service and see how you can get involved.
Amy Luers is assistant director for Climate Resilience and Information at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Mike Kuperberg is the executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

The post The Resilience Dialogues: Connecting Communities with Scientists and Practitioners first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

Roy Wright, Deputy Associate
Administrator for Federal Insurance Federal Insurance and Mitigation
Administration, sent Bulletin W-16071
late September that provides notice of the changes NFIP will implement
effective April 1, 2017. Several changes result from continued implementation
of the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014 and Biggert-Waters
Flood Insurance Reform Act, which will require modifications to the NFIP Flood
Insurance Manual, Transaction Record Reporting and Processing plan, and the
Edit Specifications document. Highlights of program changes include:

·
Updated premium rates conforming to the
premium rate caps established by BW-12 and HFIAA;

·
Updated premium multiplier tables for
policies rated under the Newly Mapped procedure; and

·
Clarifications for policy rating and
loss adjustment for Pre-Flood Insurance Rate Map substantially improved
properties.

The post Heads up from FEMA on April 1, 2017 NFIP changes first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

The survey should take 5-10 minutes and will help identify communities or public utilities to follow up with in the future. While the focus of the final project will be for coastal communities, if your community or public utility accounts for changing climate considerations in a riverine area, we would also like you to complete the survey. We are open to all methods, and riverine practices may be transferable to coastal areas.

Please forward the survey to those interested and may be able to provide assistance. The survey can be found at:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Coastal_CIP_Plan.

Help our researchers by completing this short survey before Oct. 15.

The post Help ASFPM & APA build coastal resilience with climate, flood and hazard data. first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.