State Flood Planning
In 2019, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 8 directing the creation of the first-ever state flood plan for Texas. The state flood plan brings together the findings of the 15 river-basin-based regional flood plans and makes legislative and floodplain management recommendations to guide state, regional, and local flood control policy.
The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) adopted Texas' inaugural 2024 State Flood Plan on August 15th, 2024, to be delivered to the Legislature by September 1, 2024. The regional and state flood planning processes recur in five-year cycles.
The 2024 State Flood Plan represents Texas' first attempt to perform comprehensive planning to reduce flood risk and take a broad look at flood hazard across the state. A tremendous amount of information was generated by the 15 Regional Flood Planning Groups (RFPG), through the efforts of more than 350 planning group members, their sponsors, and technical consultants, who held over 550 public meetings during the historic first cycle of regional flood planning. The transparent process with a bottom-up approach aims to identify who and what might be exposed to flooding; identify the state's major flood risk reduction infrastructure; consider existing floodplain management practices or lack thereof; and identify and recommend flood risk reduction solutions across the state. The recommended flood risk reduction solutions include flood management evaluation, flood mitigation projects, and flood management strategies.
This plan sets forth thousands of specific, actionable evaluations, projects, and strategies—costs and sponsors included—that clearly demonstrate a path forward to reduce the risk and impact of existing flood risk and avoid the creation of future flood risks.
Timeline
The 15 RFPGs, designated by the TWDB in 2020, submitted the first sets of regional flood plans by January 10th, 2023 , and amended regional flood plans to TWDB by July 14th, 2023. The TWDB approved the 15 amended regional flood plans on March 5th, 2024. The draft 2024 State Flood Plan was released for public comment from May 10 to June 17, 2024, with a public hearing held on May 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas at the TWDB.
2024 State Flood Plan Documents
- Volume I: 2024 State Flood Plan, Appendix A, Appendix C
- Volume II: Appendix B - Ranked List of Recommended Flood Risk Reduction Solutions
Interactive State Flood Plan Viewer
2024 State Flood Plan by Chapter
- Front Cover
- Acknowledgements and TOC
- Executive summary
- Introduction
- Policy Recommendations
- Existing infrastructure and key ongoing projects
- Flood Risk
- Floodplain management practices
- Goals
- Recommended flood risk reduction solutions
- Benefits and impacts of implementing the plan
- Cost and financing needs
- Ongoing efforts, challenges, and looking ahead
- Glossary
- Appendix A, Appendix C
2024 State Flood Plan Adoption and Public Comment Responses
- Adoption of the 2024 State Flood Plan-TWDB Board item to consider adoption of the 2024 State Flood Plan. The document includes a summary of substantive changes made to the plan in response to public comments.
- Public comments on the draft state flood plan and TWDB responses to comments will be available soon
Please submit any questions or concerns to the TWDB Flood Planning Division, StateFloodPlan@twdb.texas.gov.
The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) received public comments on the Draft 2024 State Flood Plan from May 10 to June 17, 2024. The public comment period is now closed. The 2024 State Flood Plan will go before the Board at the August 15, 2024 Board meeting.
The TWDB received verbal comments concerning the Draft 2024 State Flood Plan at a public meeting held on May 30, 2024 in Austin, Texas.
Watch the recorded public comment meeting HERE.
Submission Deadline Has Ended. Contact us with any questions.
The public comment period for the Draft 2024 State Flood Plan is now open. The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) will receive public comments until 5:00 p.m. on Monday, June 17, 2024.
- Volume I: Draft 2024 State Flood Plan
- Volume II: Appendix B Ranked List of Recommended Flood Risk Reduction Solutions
Please submit all written comments online HERE.
In addition to written comments via the online form, the TWDB received verbal comments concerning the Draft 2024 State Flood Plan at a public meeting held on May 30, 2024 in Austin, Texas. Watch the recorded public comment meeting HERE.
Please submit any questions or concerns to the TWDB Flood Planning Division, StateFloodPlan@twdb.texas.gov.
The TWDB is holding a public Work Session on Thursday, April 4, at 9am to seek preliminary public feedback on the potential policy recommendations that the Board is considering for inclusion in Texas' first draft state flood plan. The work session will be held at Barbara Jordan State Office Building, 1601 Congress Ave, Austin, Texas; RM 2.035. The work session will be in-person or as a web-viewing option only. Please fill in the following form, one per policy recommendation, to provide feedback on any of the recommendations.
To be considered by the TWDB, comments must be entered into this Form no later than April 11th, 2024.
Note that the input received during the work session and through this online form, will be taken into consideration as the TWDB finalizes the 2024 Draft State Flood Plan. Note that the public will also have another opportunity to comment on those policy recommendations that are included in the full Draft 2024 State Flood Plan. Following TWDB consideration of public comments on the draft plan, the final 2024 State Flood Plan must be adopted by September 1, 2024.
Submission Deadline Has Ended. Contact us with any questions.
The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) solicited public feedback on proposed methods for ranking recommended Flood Management Evaluations (FME), Flood Mitigation Projects (FMP), Flood Management Strategies (FMS) in the 2024 State Flood Plan. The intent of the TWDB ranking methods for the state flood plan is to provide a consistent approach to be used across all Texas regions to systematically address, in general, the flood hazard with most population, properties and critical facilities at risk first in the state during a 1% annual chance flood. The proposed process aims to result in a ranking with focus on (a) severity of flood risk and (b) reduction of flood risk and impact to life and property as required by 86th Texas Legislature Senate Bill 8. For maximum transparency, the actual spreadsheets with ranking criteria, weightings, the project data, and the resulting rankings were provided to stakeholders as part of this feedback solicitation process.
To keep with the bottom-up approach of the regional flood planning program, TWDB has elected to utilize only RFPG-reported data for ranking. The resulting rankings are based on the reported technical merits of each RFPG-recommended FME, FMP, and FMS.
Please use the links below to download supporting information and each Excel workbook for ranking FME, FMP, and FMS, respectively. The data provided in each workbook was compiled from the fifteen regional flood plans. This data is considered DRAFT data and provided for ranking feedback purposes ONLY.
- Supporting Information
- Proposed Ranking Criteria and Weight
- Flood Management Evaluations (FME) Workbook
- Flood Mitigation Projects (FMP) Workbook
- Flood Management Solutions (FMS) Workbook
Note: While inclusion in the state flood plan is a requirement for eligibility for future FIF project funding, the associated rankings are not intended for allocating state funding. Future funding decisions will occur through a separate TWDB process if and when funds are appropriated by the Texas Legislature. How the state flood plan project ranking may be considered in future flood project funding prioritization and allocation processes remains to be determined although it is anticipated that the state flood plan ranking will be at least one of the considerations.
- State Flood Plan Ranking: (Webinar Video, 575 MB), Webinar Slides (03/22/2023)
For questions about the State Flood Plan, please contact Reem Zoun or Tressa Olsen