By Abdullahi Lukman
The U.S National Weather Service (NWS) announced on Wednesday that its real-time flood mapping tool now covers about 60 percent of the country’s population, doubling its reach, compared to last year.
The Flood Inundation Mapping (FIM) tool, first introduced in 2023, provides forecasters with street-level views of floodwaters to improve flood watches, warnings, and predictions.
Initially, the tool covered 10 percent of the population in states like Louisiana, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
Coverage expanded to 30 percent in 2024, adding regions including the Mid-Atlantic, eastern Great Lakes, Lower Mississippi Valley, central Gulf Coast, Pacific Northwest, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The latest expansion now includes Hawaii, the West Coast, parts of south-central Alaska, the Southwest, the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, and interior Southeast, reaching a majority of the U.S. population.
David Vallee, director of the NWS Service Innovation and Partnership division, described flooding as the most frequent and costly natural disaster in the U.S.
He emphasized that expanding FIM has been transformative for providing real-time, actionable data to emergency managers and water resource officials.
The NWS plans to have the FIM tool fully operational nationwide in the near future. Meanwhile, the United Nations offers a similar but retrospective World Flood Mapping Tool, which uses decades of data to guide flood defense planning rather than providing real-time flood conditions.
