The Quick Flood Assessment Tool is designed for use on desktop computers and tablets in landscape mode.
Assess Flood Risks
The Quick Flood Assessment Tool automates what used to be a time-consuming task—calculating current and future coastal flood frequency and impacts at user-defined thresholds.
You will need to specify three inputs as you go through the tool. Guidance will be provided.
The closest NOAA tide gauge (selected via map)
A coastal flood threshold
Tolerable number of days of high tide flooding
Select a Location
Start by specifying a coastal community of interest. Data for the Great Lakes are currently unavailable.
This tool uses data from NOAA's network of coastal tide gauges. The closest tide gauge to your community of interest has been selected. If you would prefer to use a different gauge, select the corresponding location marker on the map.
Specify Your Coastal Flood Threshold
Now that you've selected a location marker:
Use the map to zoom in to your location.
Drag the slider to see the potential impact of rising water levels. Any of the levels could be a critical threshold – the point at which impacts start to occur.
After identifying your coastal flooding threshold , set it using the slider or enter it manually. Units are feet above mean higher high water (MHHW).
For reference, the 100-year (or 1% annual chance) water level at this location is x.xft, which represents a major coastal flooding event for your area.
ft of water level rise.
Enter your coastal flood threshold and select the value’s vertical datum. Assessment results will be based on the selected datum.
ft of water level rise.
A valid threshold is between 0.1 and 10 feet or 0.1 and 3 meters.
Note: The map is disabled when using the Advanced View
Already Know Your Threshold?
If you know your exact threshold, use the Advanced View for more options.
Specify High-Tide Flooding Days Threshold
High-tide flooding mostly affects low-lying areas and exposed infrastructure, such as roads, water systems, and private or commercial properties. Currently, high-tide flooding may not occur for your area, or if it does, it might have minimal impact and may be bearable. With sea level rise, high-tide flooding is occurring more frequently.
Currently in this location the high tide flooding threshold is x.xft MHHW. In 2019, there were 0 high tide flooding days in your community.
Guidance: Enter the number of days per year when it may become a problem in your community (i.e., when it will greatly impact business or travel). If you're unsure, start by entering 24 days, which is an average of two times per month. You can always come back and change the value.
number of high tide flooding days per year.
The tool provides information on
A user-defined coastal flood threshold
Changing water-level return periods
Sea level rise effects on the user’s threshold
The number of high-tide flooding days and how it might change in the future
How often significant flood events might occur in the future
The resulting outputs will be useful for decision-making, sharing your message with others, and working through the Detailed Impact Analysis methodology of this website.
Location Marker
Low-lying Areas