Flood Resiliency Blueprint

In 2021, the North Carolina General Assembly allocated $20 million to the Department of Environmental Quality Division of Mitigation Services to develop the state’s first flood resiliency blueprint. Established as part of the 2020-21 state budget, the blueprint will serve as a set of guidelines and resources for groups of all kinds to improve flood resiliency and keep themselves and their communities safe. Working with inter-agency partners and stakeholders, DMS is working to produce a comprehensive approach to flood resiliency, to identifying problems, addressing barriers, and prioritizing solutions.

 

Blueprint Contents

The flood resiliency blueprint will accomplish several key goals, including:

  • Identify sources, types and  major watersheds affected by flooding: causes, frequencies, scale of damage, and statewide geographic distribution of risk;
  • Account for existing resilience programs, stakeholders and funding sources, as well as programs and funding established in the current budget;
  • Evaluate existing data for any data gaps;
  • Identify the appropriate scale and roles for potential future state funding to address those gaps;
  • Develop appropriate visualization and decision-making tools for various stakeholders to:
    • Quantify and map flood risk within a watershed;
    • Match appropriate resilience tools and tactics to areas of risk
    • Match available funding sources to specific actions, and
    • Prioritize specific actions
  • Make recommendations for statewide implementation, including governance and decision-making structures, future blueprint management, watershed-scale stakeholder engagement, and stewardship of projects that receive state funding.

 As required by Session Law 2021-180, DMS will select an organization to develop the Blueprint and deliver an initial draft no later than December 31, 2023. 

Next Steps

To inform the scope of the Blueprint, DMS invited interested parties, including vendors, stakeholders, nonprofits, and government entities, to provide input on the development of a statewide Flood Resiliency Blueprint via a Request for Information. Vendors were also able to provide their qualifications to complete the work of the Blueprint via an Invitation for Bid. Both procurement processes closed on February 24, 2022.

DMS will invite pre-qualified teams to respond to a full scope of work via a Request for Proposal (RFP) in the spring of 2022. DMS expects to have an organization under contract by summer of 2022. Only pre-qualified vendors will be eligible to respond to the Blueprint RFP.

For more information, please contact Michelle Ferree.