Since the 2008 flood in Iowa City, the Iowa Flood Center has worked to update the floodplain map.

Professor Larry Weber of the University of Iowa IIHR — Hydroscience & Engineering, said that when the flood occurred, experts alerted state and federal officials that the maps needed to be updated and that many rural areas were not mapped.

Before the flood, floodplain maps were extremely outdated, said Witold Krajewski, the Flood Center director.

“The utility of the information during the flood was inadequate,” he said.

After the flood, the federal government awarded a $15 million project to the state of Iowa in order to map all counties, Weber said.

The grant was used to fulfill the idea of having an updated floodplain mapping system for both urban and rural areas in the state, he said.

“A large portion [of the grant], $12.5 million, was awarded to the Iowa Flood Center to do the technical work of the mapping,” Weber said.

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