ChucktownFloods: Helping Sort Through Resource Overload
About the Project
Flooding is becoming an increasingly common hazard in the Charleston, South Carolina region. When residents, businesses, and local governments look for informational resources to help them handle this new reality, they find community flooding hazard resilience is a well-researched topic.
In fact, the burden of sifting through resources for relevant information can impede the effective implementation of flood resilience. In an effort to guide stakeholders through this abundance of information, the ChucktownFloods project was created to curate, catalog, and distribute flooding hazard resources appropriate for the Charleston region.
Collaborators
The S.C. Sea Grant Consortium developed this project in partnership with the College of Charleston Computer Science Department and Boomtown!, a software company that specializes in marketing systems for real estate professionals.
Funding and support was provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, National Protection and Programs Directorate, Office of Infrastructure Protection, through the National Infrastructure Protection Program Security and Resilience Challenge, which is implemented by the National Institute for Homeland Security (NIHS).
About the Project
This project began with the identification and analysis of existing information related to flooding hazard resilience. The analysis catalogued official publications, vulnerability indices, resilience planning tools, interactive maps, and other resources developed by reputable entities.
Focus groups representing Charleston neighborhoods, businesses, and municipalities examined this catalog of resources. They concluded Charleston needs a tool to support proactive efforts for flooding resilience that is locally focused and serves the community’s diverse stakeholders.
This challenge was presented to seven teams of developers during the ChucktownFloods Hackathon. Over the course of three days, teams designed prototypes to empower Charleston stakeholders to make informed, proactive decisions in the face of coastal hazards and create a more knowledgeable and resilient community. The winning team, Knee Deep, was awarded a contract to develop their prototype into a functional web-based application.
Guided by a technical committee of flooding hazard professionals from public and private organizations, the Knee Deep team developed the ChucktownFloods website in 2019.
Divided into four primary components—Resource Portal, Data Repository, Live Updates, and Interactive Map—the website provides an organized catalog of relevant resources and data for flooding resilience.