Feedback on the New Datums 2015 Geospatial Summit April 13 to 14, 2015 Federal Emergency Management Agency Risk MAP Paul Rooney

Our major products/services which will be affected by the new datums: National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Flood Maps NFIP insures about $1.3 Trillion in property To be eligible communities must agree to minimum building standards in high risk areas Property owners in high risk areas must purchase insurance to be eligible for various federal program and most conventional mortgages. To implement these requirements FEMA publishes flood maps that define: The boundaries of the high risk area The elevations that buildings must be built in the high risk area Flood risk analysis and mapping depends on good data, particularly accurate elevations. Our preparations to date include: Minimal – most transition will need to occur after datums are available Currently working on transition from NAD83(1986) to NAD83 (2011). May provide template for future. Preparation

We are excited because... Implementation of NFIP requires thousands of precise horizontal and vertical measurements of buildings Communities must adopt the FEMA flood hazard into their land use and building codes Communities attach a copy of the map to their ordinance as the official record Permitting of new construction, real estate transactions, and flood insurance all need determination of flood risk status and minimum building elevation – where applicable Horizontal locations of high risk boundaries and minimum building elevations are referenced to the NSRS to facilitate these determinations Administratively, very small differences can have a large impact We are concerned because... Changing the datum on maps requires administrative actions by communities Once the boundaries and elevations are published by FEMA they are fixed administratively and enforced by Federal, state and local laws Maps can be updated by individual or communities submitting better technical data FEMA can revise the analyses and publish new maps Communities and affected property owners have the opportunity to review changes A large map revision will typically take 3-5 years and can sometimes take much longer. Advantages / Challenges

The tools, products, or services we need most (from NGS or others) are: The ability to convert between datums (and datum realizations) The National Flood Hazard Layer is a large (several gigabyte) GIS dataset of 20+ layers covering CONUS, AK, HI, PR, CNMI, Guam The NFHL is currently in NAD 83 (1986) ESRI currently has transformations only through HARN Geocon/Geocon11 grid transformation will be added later this year. Challenges HARN grid overlap, including states with multiple grids. No HARN for Alaska – handling with uniform shifts OK? The outreach we need most (from NGS or others): Outreach is difficult because the issues are so complex Most NFIP end users will not understand and training and outreach is not likely to be solution Transition Tools / Outreach Needs