Flood Data Collection in Pennsylvania – Site Selection Data for the Development of a Rapid Deployment Network

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is working to identify priority locations across Pennsylvania where additional riverine flood information may be desirable during or after major storm events. Criteria involved in the identification of potential locations for flood data collection includes locations of bridges over water, scour-critical bridges, densely populated areas, historical hurricane tracks, historical flood event data collection sites, counties with historical Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster declarations, Social Vulnerability Index data, and flood-related disaster data provided by FEMA (insurance claims, individual assistance applications, and repetitive loss records). Pre-identification of these locations in anticipation of a flood event ensures that areas of interest are being targeted and allows for expedited decision-making related to site selection, resulting in safer and more timely installation of equipment.

This data release includes the following downloadable files:

a database (DR_2022_Table.xlsx) of selected bridge over water locations in Pennsylvania with populated criteria data attributes,
a shapefile (DR_2022_Table_Shapefile.zip) version of the database,
a metadata table (DR_2022_Metadata_Table_Variables.xlsx) that lists and defines the database attributes, and
a metadata file (DR_2022_Table_Metadata.xml) describing data resources and data compilation methods.

This data release is also accompanied by a geonarrative as an external digital resource.