ALASKA RISK MAP PROGRAM

Risk Mapping, Assessment, and Planning

(Risk MAP)

Increasing Resilience Together

The Alaska Risk MAP Program is funded through a Cooperating Technical Partnership between the State of Alaska and FEMA. The program provides communities with flood and other hazard information, risk assessment tools and outreach support to increase local understanding of risk, inform community decisions regarding risk, and ultimately lead to local actions which will reduce risk. Increasing community resilience to natural hazards is a goal.

Risk MAP is a process, a continuing, collaborative partnership to help federal, state, tribal, and local community officials, business owners, private citizens and stakeholders make sound floodplain management decisions and take action to reduce risk from floods and other hazards.

Risk MAP intends to integrate and align other FEMA mitigation and risk analysis programs, such as the Multi-Hazard Mitigation Planning and National Flood Insurance Programs (NFIP), into a into an effective, community-based strategy.

Communities can use the information and resources obtained through the Risk MAP process to update plans, reduce risk, and increase local resilience to disasters.

The graphic to the left illustrates the Risk MAP Process from Discovery through Resilience. For more information on each step of the Risk MAP process, please visit the Risk MAP Process story map webpage.

Alaska's Strategy

The Alaska Mapping Business Plan: Integrating Mapping, Assessment, and Resilience Planning comprehensively evaluates the status of Alaska's flood maps, setting priorities for future mapping and risk assessment, and outlining a collaborative relationship with FEMA to fully execute the Risk MAP strategy for the benefit of Alaska’s communities, local governments, tribal entities, and residents. The purpose of the Alaska Mapping Business Plan is to provide FEMA with Alaska's strategy for local government participation in the Risk MAP Program.

Environmentally Threatened Alaska Native Communities

A focus of Alaska's Risk MAP Program is to provide assistance to Alaska Native villages threatened by flooding, erosion and permafrost degradation. This effort initially focuses on communities identified as highly or moderately threatened in the 2019 Statewide Threat Assessment. DCRA is partnering with other state and federal agencies, private sector organizations, non-profit entities, tribes and local governments to develop a strategy that will bring the resources and tools of Risk MAP to the communities most in need of this assistance. Please visit the Imminently-Threatened Alaska Native Village story map web page for more information.

Mapping Studies in Alaska

Risk MAP has been deployed in seventeen Alaskan municipalities (cities and boroughs) since 2011. Of these, currently three (3) municipal Risk MAP studies are in the Discovery phase, two (2) studies are In-Progress, five (5) studies have resulted in Preliminary FIRMs, one (1) study is in the Resilience phase, and three projects (Kodiak Island Borough, the City of Cordova and the Kenai Peninsula Borough, including the Cities of Homer and Seward) have been completed. The State Risk MAP Coordinator continues to assist the municipalities with their resilience goals after study completion. For more information on Alaska's Risk MAP projects, see the detailed study status in the drop-down menu, "Municipal (National Flood Insurance Program [NFIP] and Non-NFIP) Risk MAP Studies", above.

Completed, Current, and Proposed Risk MAP Studies

To open full-sized version of this map, click on the image

For more information contact:

Rebecca Rein

State of Alaska Risk MAP Coordinator
Division of Community and Regional Affairs
Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development
550 West 7th Avenue, Suite 1650, Anchorage, AK 99501-3569
Phone (907) 269-3037
Fax (907) 269-4539
Email: rebecca.rein@alaska.gov

Revised 11/20/2024