Planning for Flood Resilience in the Texas Lower Rio Grande Valley

The Texas General Land Office (GLO) is administering HUD’s Community Development Block Grant - Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) and Community Development Block Grant - Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) programs. These programs received funding after disasters in 2015, 2016, and Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The GLO embarked on the Combined River Basin Flood Studies initiative in 2020 to support long-term recovery by evaluating flood risk consistently across a 56-county impact area and identifying mitigation projects. Unique to this Study is the evaluation of local, state, and federal funding strategies to successfully advance mitigation projects and the consideration of equity and social vulnerability as a component of flood risk analysis and project prioritization. One of the primary end goals of this effort is to not only identify the most vulnerable but to assist local communities in completing grant funding applications to reduce flood risk immediately. Additionally, the data collected and produced by the Study will inform a separate GLO-funded initiative – the Texas Disaster Information System (TDIS). TDIS will reduce the complexity, access and understanding of flood risk information when needed most by a variety of audiences, including individuals, local decision-makers, and academia. The presentation will provide an overview of the Combined River Basin Flood Study, Texas Disaster Information System, and review how the program is being implemented in 4 counties in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Further, it will discuss the benefits of regional planning to support flood mitigation objectives and optimize return on investment for potential flood mitigation projects.