California's Floodplain Protection Plan to Reduce the Risk of Flooding

According to the California Department of Water Resources, more than 1 million Californians live and work in the floodplains of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley. The Central Valley Flood Protection Plan is a comprehensive flood management planning effort that addresses flood risks in an integrated manner while concurrently improving ecosystem functions, operations and maintenance practices, and institutional support for flood management.

As part of the plan, we:

• Developed hydrologic inputs for hydraulic models, including hydrology that reflects current and future conditions with consideration of climate change
• Developed and executed HEC-ResSim reservoir operation models to analyze alternative storage scenarios, also in consideration of climate change
• Assisted with modification, review and execution of system-wide HEC-RAS hydraulic models to determine channel and floodplain stages
• Developed and executed HEC-FDA models to assess changes in flood risk associated with structural and non-structural alternatives. We assessed both economic and life risk

Our input and findings assisted DWR in developing the State System-wide Investment Approach.