Principle 5: Development within the state must be guided away from flood-prone areas; adverse impacts of development inside and outside the floodplain must be minimized.
Adverse floodplain impacts can be avoided or minimized if communities within the state have the authority, tools, and political will to guide development to less hazard-prone areas, or to examine the full extent of impacts—both on-site and off-site—when floodplain development is proposed. By guiding development away from flood-prone areas, the state protects its citizens.
- First, it protects landowners by requiring that their development activities meet certain standards to avoid flood damage to their property.
- Second, it protects the entire community by requiring that those activities do not adversely affect others.
Effective state programs apply land use management techniques directly through state regulation, or authorize and foster application of those techniques at the local level, including planning, zoning, risk assessment, growth management, impact analyses, subdivision regulations, and permitting programs. Besides requiring that floodplain development be built so that it withstands flood damage, effective programs acknowledge that watersheds and floodplains are complex natural systems, and that their interrelationship with human-caused actions and the impacts of each development on other property owners must be taken into consideration.
Note: The table and figure numbers found below follow the order of those in the full 2025 FPM Assessment report [.pdf] and may not be sequential. Tables can be sorted by clicking on column headings. If tables and/or charts do not load, try refreshing the page.
Principle 5 Highlights
Questions 79-80. Requirements for communities to develop comprehensive land use plans
- Most states that required local land use plans also required them to address flood hazards (84%) and, to a slightly lesser extent, the natural functions (67%) and resources (68%) of floodplains (Question 80, Figure P5.1).
Figure P5.1. Results for Question 80 – Are there requirements for local land use plans to consider…
Question 82. Prevalence of the types of state floodplain management regulations & Question 83. Freeboard requirements
- The most commonly required floodplain management regulations across states were freeboard standards (72%), dam failure warning/response systems (69%), flood hazard disclosure (67%), and stormwater management (66%) (Question 82, Table P5.3).
- Most responding states (64%) require one foot of freeboard above the BFE (Question 83, Table P5.4). Several jurisdictions (Montana, Indiana, District of Columbia, New York, Vermont) require two feet, and New Jersey requires three feet of freeboard.
Table P5.3. Results for Question 82 – Are the following floodplain management regulations required by your state?
Table P5.4. Results for Question 83 – How many feet is the level of freeboard required by the state?
Questions 99-100. Federal activities/regulations contributing to flooding problems
- Roughly 30% indicated they believe federal activities or regulations are contributing to flooding problems (Question 99, Figure P5.3). This is almost identical to the result in 2017, when 29% of respondents answered “yes” to the same question.
- In follow-up (Question 100), respondents indicated that the top federal activities or regulations contributing to flooding problems included, levee construction or work within floodways, and some cited federal construction or infrastructure projects such as highways and the federal Department of Transportation not having the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS) in their statute.
Figure P5.3. Results for Question 99 – Are federal activities or regulations contributing to flooding problems in your state?
Questions 101-106. State adoption of building codes
- A strong majority (73%) of respondents indicated they have a state-adopted building code (Question 101); this is the same percentage as in 2017.
- Almost all respondents (96%) reported that their state used a version of the Building Code Series or International Codes (I-Codes) as the basis of their building codes (Questions 102 and 104, Figure P5.4).
Figure P5.4. Results for Question 104 – Which versions of the I-Codes are the basis of your state building codes?
Questions 107-109. Local jurisdictions and state-adopted building codes
- Regarding state-adopted building codes, there is a relatively even split among states on requiring local jurisdictions to administer them: 37% require locals to administer without conditions, 20% with conditions, and 43% do not require it (Question 107).
- Where administration is required with conditions (Question 108), they often involve population size, or allow local jurisdictions to adopt a stricter code or amendments that do not weaken the state's requirements.
Table P5.8. Results for Question 107 – Does your state require local jurisdictions to administer the state adopted building code?
Continue to Principle 6 Highlights
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Principle 6 | Principle 7 | Principle 8 | Principle 9 | Principle 10