What Floodplain Managers Want: Using Weather and Climate Information for Decision-Making

Abstract

Due to climate change, extreme precipitation events are likely to become more common in Oklahoma, requiring cities and municipalities to plan for managing this extra water. There are multiple types of practitioners within communities who are responsible for overseeing planning for the future, including stormwater and floodplain management. These practitioners may be able to integrate weather and climate information into their decision-making to help them prepare for heavy precipitation events and their impacts. Floodplain managers from central and eastern Oklahoma were interviewed to learn what information they currently use and how it informs their decision-making. When making decisions in the short-term, floodplain managers relied on weather forecasts, and for long-term decisions, other factors such as constrained budgets or the power of county officials had more influence than specific climate predictions or projections. On all timescales, social networks and prior experience with flooding informed floodplain manager’s decisions and planning. Overall, weather and climate information are just one component of floodplain managers’ decision-making process. The atmospheric science community could work more collaboratively with practitioners so that weather and climate information is more useful and therefore more relevant to the types of decisions that floodplain managers make.