Building Flood Resilience in Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE - Urban planners in metro areas like Baton Rouge frequently find themselves grappling with issues like blight and disaster response.

Now Baton Rouge area decision-makers have a have a new tool, designed by CC&E researchers, that allows them to confront these persistent challenges simultaneously.

The Flood Resilience Redevelopment tool, developed by Rebeca de Jesús Crespo, Thomas Douthat and Clint Willson, is designed to share information about properties in the parishes bordering the Amite River. It allows stakeholders to view available parcels of land alongside rankings of their flood risk, walkability and ability to retain runoff, along with other ecosystem services.

“The idea was to combine all these factors into a single value, a Flood Resilient Redevelopment index, that city planners could use to both prioritize locations for redevelopment and flood mitigation,” said de Jesús Crespo.

“We have all the data needed to make sound decisions that promote vibrant urban cores and flood risk reduction in our city; we set out to make it easier for decision-makers to do so,” she continued. de Jesús Crespo and Douthat are both assistant professors in the Department of Environmental Sciences. Willson is the dean of CC&E.

Douthat added that the tool helps make clear the tradeoffs that can exist when considering redevelopment. “The tradeoffs between flood risk in greenfield areas receiving investment, and urban blight in areas of higher elevation, is not always apparent when thinking about the cumulative effects of land use patterns. We don’t full appreciate the opportunity cost of blight and underinvestment in centrally located areas of low flood risk, nor do we account for the ecosystem service value of greenspaces.” 

The team developed the project with assistance and input from representatives from Build Baton Rouge, the city’s redevelopment authority, the Capitol Region Planning Commission, or CRPC, and the Georgetown Climate Center. The work was funded by the National Academy of Science’s Gulf Research Program.

Building Resiliency

The index is featured on an ArcGIS Dashboard, and gives information about East Baton Rouge Parish, and its main watershed, the Amite River Flood Basin. It contains overlays showing adjudicated properties - properties where the city-parish has been unable to collect taxes, either from the owner or through the sale of the property- locations of wetlands, and the City-Parish Floodplain conveyance zones. Users can toggle between parish-wide and hyper-local, neighborhood views, and can zoom in on an individual parcel to get information.

An empty lot may protect the surrounding neighborhood by providing stormwater runoff retention, something planners would want to take into account for green space creation. “This is information that could help communities plan for flood resilience,” said de Jesús Crespo. Properties in other locations may not provide flood protection but may be walkable for work and transit, making it ripe for a new business or housing development.

Enhancing community connectivity

Representatives from both Build Baton Rouge and CRPC recognize the tool’s potential.

“By analyzing flood risk, ecosystem services, and walkability, the tool enables Build Baton Rouge to target parcels that not only mitigate flood hazards but also enhance community connectivity and environmental resilience. This approach ensures that our Land Bank properties are developed in ways that align with sustainable, long-term resilience goals for the Baton Rouge neighborhoods we serve,” said Gretchen Siemers, Chief Operating Officer of Build Baton Rouge.

Woodrow Muhammad, director of planning for CRPC, said that his organization is considering using the tool to facilitate a proposed regional transfer of development rights program. “The regional TDR [Transfer of Development Rights] program may incentivize reinvestment in areas with adequate infrastructure while creating a dual community benefit: reducing development pressure within the floodplain… and scattered infill development on vacant lots.”

Beyond Baton Rouge

Although it has been designed to address issues specific to Baton Rouge, the tool’s approach would work in metro areas across the country. Its information comes entirely from publicly available data sources including the USEPA’s National Walkability Index, and runoff retention calculated using the open source platform Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services (InVEST) Urban Flood Risk Mitigation model.  – which means it would be easily replicated.

“Our value for this project is combining existing information, data and models into something that will help inform policy more directly,” de Jesús Crespo said. “The policy makers are busy… We’re just bringing those datasets closer to a decision-making end point.”