Activity 3.2 | West Virginia Climate Link

The goal of this activity is to study future flood risk in Morgantown, West Virginia utilizing the website Flood Factor. Flood Factor is a tool created by the First Street Foundation to allow people to understand their property’s flood risk and to educate them on how flood risk changes in a changing environment.

Students begin by exploring if flood risk is increasing or decreasing in Morgantown (or community/address of their choosing). Then, they answer questions about Morgantown’s Flood Factor, and where particular places in Morgantown are most at risk. At the end of the activity, there are open-ended questions where students can write about what solutions should be taken in Morgantown to decrease flood risk.

1. Access the Flood Factor tool

2. Type in the zip code ‘26505’ (for Morgantown example) into the “Find Your Home’s Flood Factor” box in the middle of the screen.

Summary:

Question: How many homes in Morgantown are ‘at risk’? What does ‘at-risk’ mean? (Hint: click ‘at risk’ underneath the heading “Morgantown has flood risk”)

Question: Is there a change in the number of properties at risk over a 30-year period? Is there a change in the total annual flood damages over a 30-year period?

Question: Are you surprised by these changes? What environmental factors might be associated with this assessment?

Score Map:

3. Scroll down to ‘Score Map’

4. Click on ‘Learn more about the Flood Factor methodology”

5. Scroll down to ‘Analyzing all major flood types’

Question: What types of flooding are included in Flood Factor analysis?

6. Click on ‘Rain’, ‘Ravine’, ‘Tidal’, or ‘Storm Surge’

Question: Describe when one of the four flooding types occurs and why it occurs in a given area.

7. Go back to ‘Score Map’

Screenshot from the 'Flood Factor' website. Selected checkboxes to Filter by Flood Factor are :Minor, Moderate, Major, Sever and Extreme. A bar graph shows that over 1000 properties are at risk for flooding with most cases being Major or Extreme.

Question: How many properties are at risk by the Flood Factor in Morgantown? What type of Flood Factor [from minimal to extreme] has the highest percentage in Morgantown?

8. Looking at the map of Morgantown and the surrounding areas (Westover, Granville, Star City).

Screenshot from the 'Flood Factor' website showing a map of Morgantown, WV. The map shows dots in shades of yellow to red indicating areas prone to flooding, red being more extreme.

Question: Where are there areas of properties that might be exposed to extreme flooding? What sort of environmental factors might make these areas more prone to flooding?

9. Scroll down to ‘Flood risks vary by depth and likelihood’

10. Using the interactive panel below this heading, answer the following questions.

Screenshot from the 'Flood Factor' website showing selected flood risk for this year. Approx. 1,595 properties have a 0.2% chances of some amount of water reaching their building in 2021.

Question: How many properties in Morgantown have a 20% chance of flooding this year? In 15 years? In 30 years?

Question: Does the number of properties in Morgantown under a 20% chance of flooding increase or decrease in the future? What factors might cause this increase or decrease?

Question: Describe on the map below where changes in projected flooding risk occur.

Screenshot from the 'Flood Factor' website showing a map of Morgantown, WV. Areas near rivers and streams are marked with purple to indicate where flooding is most likely to occur.

Environmental Changes:

11. Using the interactive panel, answer questions below regarding projected environmental changes.

Screenshot showing three maps of the United States with the following copy: "Perciptation Change, Sea Level Rise, Sea Surface Temperatures. Below the maps is a selector to change the map projection "This year", "In 15 years", "In 30 years".

Question : How is precipitation change projected this year in West Virginia? What about in 15 years? In 30 years?

Question: How is sea level rise projected this year on the east coast of the US? What about in 15 years? In 30 years? Where are places on the east coast that have the highest projected sea level rise in 30 years?

Question: How is sea surface temperature projected this year on the east coast of the US? What about in 15 years? In 30 years? Where are places on the east coast that have the highest projected sea surface temperature increases?

Question: Why might these three projections (precipitation change, sea level rise, and sea surface temperature) be utilized to assess flood risk?

Community Solutions:

Question: What is an example of green infrastructure that can be implemented to better protect Morgantown?

Question: What is an example of grey infrastructure that can be implemented to better protect Morgantown?

Question: What is an example of resilience that can be implemented to better protect Morgantown?