North Carolina DEQ outlines Flood Resiliency Blueprint, tool and basin timelines

Stu Brown, manager of the Flood Resiliency Blueprint at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), presented an overview of the program and its decision-support “blueprint tool,” the agency’s improved basin-scale flood modeling and a schedule for draft river basin action strategies during a recorded DEQ briefing.

Brown said the General Assembly established the Blueprint in 2021 to serve as the backbone for statewide flood planning and to produce a prioritized, implementable set of flood-resilience projects and funding strategies. “The goal is to make North Carolina more resilient to flooding, to reduce the cost and disruption from future flood events,” Brown said.

The Nut Graf: DEQ described a two-part approach: new, higher-resolution modeling that expands flood extent beyond traditional FEMA regulatory maps, and a public-facing tool that lets communities explore vulnerability indices and—through a partners-only interface—estimate planning-level costs and benefits for candidate projects. Draft river basin action strategies for the Neuse, Cape Fear, Lumber, Tar Pamlico and White Oak basins will be released in May and June for public feedback; final basin strategies are expected in June–July. The French Broad basin is on a delayed schedule because of Hurricane Helene recovery work.

Brown said the Blueprint builds on existing state, university and federal datasets but invests in improved modeling. He described a shift “from the 1D modeling that’s used in the regulatory data to a 2D rain-on-grid approach” for the six basins currently funded. Citing academic studies, Brown said regulatory flood maps miss a large share of flood exposure: an NC State study found roughly 68% of flood damage occurred outside FEMA’s high-risk zones, and a UNC analysis identified more than 90,000 Eastern North Carolina buildings that flooded at least once from 1996–2020, many of them outside the FEMA floodplain.

The blueprint tool is public-facing and offers users flood-risk and vulnerability indices and community-level data such as critical infrastructure, emergency services, historic assets and housing. Brown described a partners-only section for municipal or county staff and qualifying organizations that need to populate project attributes and generate planning-level cost and impact estimates. “The tool is a decision support tool,” he said.

DEQ outlined the program’s tiered planning process: local planning to produce prioritized local action lists, followed by basin-level evaluation with DEQ staff, contractors and advisory groups that apply more rigorous analysis to identify the projects and funding strategies to pursue. Each river basin action strategy will include a data-and-gap analysis, an inventory of past actions, vulnerability and community capacity assessments, and a prioritized list of projects and funding approaches.

On funding and implementation, Brown said the program originally had $96 million allocated for projects, which was later reduced to about $76 million. “We spent, or just under, $42,000,000 to date. About $17,000,000 is currently in the contracting process, and we have $16,700,000 that has not yet entered the contracting process,” he said. DEQ said most remaining funds are earmarked for projects that come out of the river basin action strategy process and that the agency seeks to leverage other state, federal and philanthropic sources—citing partnerships with programs such as the Land Water Fund—to stretch limited dollars.

Brown described basin leads as an extension-style resource for communities: the staff member for each basin will support planning, grant proposals, contract management and monitoring, and help under-resourced communities participate in planning and implement projects. The DEQ team said the goal is to expand modeling and action strategies statewide to all 17 basins and to revisit basin strategies on a five-year cycle as data and tools improve.

The presentation closed with contact information and directions for public feedback once draft strategies are published. Brown encouraged communities and partner agencies to use the tool and to seek partners’ access for project-level prioritization and cost estimates.

The briefing contained no formal motions or votes; DEQ framed the session as informational with public-comment and question opportunities to follow once draft strategies are released.