Geoscience Policy Monthly Review
august 2013
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natural hazards
Floodplain mapping should include climate variation, group says
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a report on August 13 that criticizes the failure of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to take account of climate change in risk assessment. The report is part of a larger effort by UCS to convince the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to account for climate impacts on flooding in its policies. The report comes before the planned initiation of increased premiums for risky buildings, which will be done by the NFIP on October 1. It is among a number of changes that are contained in the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 signed into law on July 1 by President Obama.
The legislation requires FEMA to establish a "technical mapping advisory council" to overhaul floodplain maps, but it is unclear whether this panel will advise the use of climate projection models in their assessment of future risks. The UCS report underlined the fact that FEMA flood maps are used by local land planners, engineering firms, and developers around the country for decisions such as site selection and building strength. The report urges FEMA to incorporate “scientific projections of sea level rise and its impacts, including coastal erosion and magnification of flooding risks from higher high tides and storm surges” in order to “set insurance rates and guide building codes and floodplain development decisions.”
Report by the National Academies identifies potential of induced seismicity in energy technologies
This August the National Research Council (NRC) released a report, sponsored by the Department of Energy, that examines the relationship between induced seismicity and energy technologies. The report concludes that “hydraulic fracturing has a low risk for inducing earthquakes that can be felt by people, but underground injection of wastewater produced by hydraulic fracturing and other energy technologies has a higher risk of causing such earthquakes … In addition, carbon capture and storage may have the potential for inducing seismic events.” The report also concludes that “technologies designed to maintain a balance between the amounts of fluid being injected and withdrawn, such as most geothermal and conventional oil and gas development, appear to produce fewer induces seismic events than technologies that do not maintain fluid balance.”