Building Flood Resilience in West Virginia through Community-Engaged Research

Riverine flooding events are expected to become increasingly severe in the coming decades due to climate change, resulting in an urgent need to build flood resilience in underserved areas of the country. West Virginia has some of the highest risk of flooding in the United States, which is often compounded by aging infrastructure and high levels of socioeconomic vulnerability. In June 2016, one storm caused flooding that killed twenty-three people, destroyed or damaged thousands of homes and businesses, and caused $1 billion in damages across the state. Some of the most affected towns have yet to fully recover. This mixed-methods community-engaged research project was the first systematic investigation of lessons learned from the 2016 floods in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, a place devastated by this disaster. Using a county-wide survey, focus groups, and participatory GIS (PGIS), this project resulted in the creation of community-informed geospatial products to communicate flood risk, as well as a set of community-identified recommendations for increasing resilience to future flood disasters. Findings offer critical insights for more effective flood response and recovery in West Virginia and other rural areas of the United States with high riverine flood risk.