Each regional flood planning group will be responsible for developing a regional flood plan by January 2023. Based on the regional flood plans, the TWDB will prepare and adopt the Texas' first-ever state flood plan and present it to the Texas Legislature in September 2024. The TWDB will provide grant funds to planning groups, enabling them to hire technical consultants to perform much of the work necessary to develop the regional flood plans. Regional flood plans are required to be based on the best available science, data, models, and flood risk mapping. Each self-governed regional flood planning group will be responsible for holding regular public meetings and adding additional voting or non-voting members if they are considered necessary; choosing a planning group sponsor as its administrative agent; selecting and directing the work of its technical consultant (to be procured by the planning group sponsor); soliciting and considering public input and making all necessary decisions to develop and adopt its regional flood plan; identifying specific flood risks and the need for assessing those risks as well as setting flood risk reduction goals. The three-step flood risk analysis comprises flood hazard analyses that determines location, magnitude, and frequency of flooding; flood exposure analyses to identify who and what might be harmed within the region; and vulnerability analyses to identify vulnerabilities of communities and critical facilities; identifying and recommending flood management evaluations and strategies and flood mitigation projects to reduce flood risk in their regions; and focusing both on reducing existing flood risks to life and property and on floodplain management in general to avoid increasing flood risk in the future by keeping future populations out of the way of flood flows.

To determine which flood planning region you are geographically located in, please review the flood planning region boundary map. To become involved with the regional flood planning group, the TWDB recommends attending a planning group meeting. A list of upcoming meeting dates and locations for each regional flood planning group will be posted on our website once available.

All meetings of regional flood planning group and their committees or subcommittees are open to the public and subject to the Texas Open Meetings Act, Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code. The minimum public notice for planning group meetings is 7 days in accordance with the TWDB’s regional flood planning rules, which require additional notice and public comment periods for some regional flood planning group activities.

Please visit the Texas Water Development Board website at www.twdb.texas.gov.