Flooding is a recurrent problem in Hazard City. Portions of Riverside, Ralston and Point Park are inundated when the Palouse River and Clearwater River overflow their banks. The problem areas can be seen on the flood rate insurance map shown below. The repeated losses from this flooding justify deliberate action to reduce the impact from future floods.

Flood mitigation is a cooperative activity in which citizens, government and businesses participate in an attempt to reduce the impact of future floods. There are several approaches to flood mitigation which include:

Structural:   Building levees, dams, channels or other structures in an attempt to contain, divert or control flood waters.

Insurance:   Property owners purchase Federal Flood Insurance to cover flood losses.

Floodplain Regulation:   Local government reviews and approves/rejects building permits to regulate where and what type of development occurs.

Relocation:   Government buy-out of frequently flooded property.

Your job is to consider flood mitigation options for Hazard City and prepare a report for City Council. Your report should include: 1) the positive and negative aspects for each of the four flood mitigation strategies listed above, 2) speculations on who would pay for each of these strategies, and 3) a clear explanation of which strategy you believe would be the best for Hazard City.

As a general rule, the best flood mitigation strategies are those that limit the amount of long term damage and have the lowest, fairly-distributed cost.