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The Resilience Focus Area Strategy was born out of the District’s need to be strategic in its flood resilience work across so many communities impacted by flood plains and interior flood risk. Moreover, planners wanted to understand where and how to prioritize their work according to the highest risk and highest concentration of vulnerable populations. For these reasons, through a rigorous data-driven, equity-centered analytical process, the Strategy prioritizes areas of intervention by putting people and vulnerable populations at the center, then the critical infrastructure that is needed for a speedy recovery, and, finally, the District’s ability to implement change. The Strategy also prioritizes areas under local jurisdiction (non-federal) because of a recognition that the District can affect changes in these areas in a relatively quicker fashion.
This Resilience Focus Areas Strategy is meant to be the first version of a living document that is routinely revised to capture advances in science, updates in demographic data, new developments and changes in land uses, and the implementation of resilience measures that might change areas’ exposure to flood risk. Future updates should follow the US Census decennial release as well as new flood data and the completion of the ongoing multi-year Integrated Flood Model (IFM) project. Once complete, the IFM will be able to generate mapped scenarios of current and projected future flooding conditions throughout the District looking at climate change, sea level rise, and impacts of back-to-back storms.
The RFA Strategy is principally meant to guide the work of DOEE’s “Flood Team” and, in general, the District’s flood resilience planning and investments in the future. Thanks to the Strategy’s analysis, the District will have a roadmap to flood resilience that prioritizes areas with the highest risk of flooding and areas with the most population in need. DOEE’s Flood Team has already started work in some of the top ranked RFAs including Southwest & Buzzard Point, the Kenilworth Park/Watts Branch corridor, Oxon Run and Ivy City.
The Resilience Focus Area Strategy was completed by the District Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) with support from a wide range of District agencies. Feedback from key stakeholders was integrated into this Strategy throughout its development and reflects the views and priorities of the District’s flood resilience community. In particular, we would like to thank members of the DC Silver Jackets and the DC Flood Task Force for their feedback throughout the planning process.
