Developed for the Department of Natural Resources, Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), the Colorado Flood Decision Support System (DSS) provides a one-stop shop for floodplain and emergency managers for snowpack, streamflow, flood maps, and other related data to allow them to estimate risk and near future conditions up to and above a National Weather Service (NWS) flood warning and alert.
The Flood DSS is a web based GIS mapping application that displays a variety of flood-related data, including: historic flooding, critical facilities, community flood insurance information, wildfire risk, and FEMA flood hazard layers. In addition to the regulatory and hazard information, a real-time data component was included, which is useful for assessing current and near-future conditions. The real time data consists of precipitation radar, streamflow conditions, air temperature, gauge measured precipitation, NWS and NOAA radar estimated precipitation products, flood warnings, U.S.D.A.’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) SNOTEL data (SNOwpack TELemetry), and the Snow Data Assimilation System (SNODAS) modeled spatial snowpack data. CWCB and HDR’s seasonal Flood Threat Bulletin products are also available in spatial and text format from May to September. Features within the application allow users to find locations by address, provide distance measuring tools, and the ability to identify features for more information.
To get started, check out the Decision Support System home page. From here, you can explore the CDSS Map View and Flood DSS and download data. You can also follow the Flood DSS on Twitter at @FloodDSS.
Future phases may include incorporating more data layers and possibly even a mobile application for smart phones. Customer feedback and suggestions are welcomed for future phases of Colorado’s Decision Support Systems and can be sent to ray.alvarado@state.co.us or carolyn.fritz@state.co.us.
