Guidelines and Standards for Flood Risk Analysis and Mapping (9)

These documents are versions of FEMA's Guidelines and Specifications for Flood Hazard Mapping Partners which have been superseded. To view the current version of these guidelines, visit the Guidelines and Standards for Flood Risk Analysis and Mapping page.

Templates and Other Resources are a collection of documents used to support the implementation of Flood Risk Projects and may be referenced in standards, guidance, and technical references. The types of documents found here include templates, checklists, forms, database schemas, metadata profiles, product prototypes, and etc.

To help you navigate the available templates/other resources and related documentation, there are additional instructions for Finding Standards, Guidance, and Related Documents.

Technical References are specifications of a technical nature essential to the success of the program but too granular to be considered standards. These are database, product and documentation requirements where consistency is needed.  There are a number of standards that mandate compliance with the Technical References.

To help you navigate the available templates/other resources and related documentation, there are additional instructions for Finding Standards, Guidance, and Related Documents.

Guidance documents provide best practices for FEMA's Risk MAP program. These guidance documents are intended to support current FEMA standards and facilitate effective and efficient implementation of the program. All guidance documents were written to support FEMA standards, but nothing presented in this document is considered mandatory. Alternate approaches that comply with standards that support program objectives are also acceptable.

To help you navigate the available guidance and related documentation, there are additional instructions for Finding Standards, Guidance, and Related Documents.

In 2011, FEMA undertook a multi-year project to improve the way guidelines and standards are published, maintained and used. The final product of the first phase of work is the Policy for Flood Risk Analysis and Mapping, which comprises the standards for practitioners of the Risk MAP program. The Policy for Flood Risk Analysis and Mapping outlines FEMA’s requirements to produce better overall consistency and more efficient operation of mapping activities. In the past, FEMA published guidelines and standards in single documents comprising a document library. In the new policy, the standards are published separately from guidance. The vast majority of these standards are ones that are already in place and existing, extracted from the existing guidelines and standards documents into standalone statements. At the high level, this transformation does not change the way the program operates. However, for practitioners working on Flood Risk Projects, there are a number of standards that are new or significantly changed. The Policy for Flood Risk Analysis and Mapping represents the vision of the transformation processes and has set the stage for future updates and revisions. The new policy also includes mapping elements from the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 (BW12). Many of the substantial reforms in BW12 are required to be implemented in coordination with the new Technical Mapping Advisory Council (TMAC). The development and implementation of these additional changes will happen over the next several years as the TMAC makes its recommendations to FEMA.

The Master Index supports FEMA Risk MAP stakeholders by providing a cross-reference of guidelines and standards documentation available (including standards, guidance, technical references, and templates/other resources) for their flood risk projects, processing of letters of map change and related Risk MAP activities.

Only a portion of the Risk MAP Guidance documents have been transformed into the new format.  As a result, many standards do not currently have links to guidance and only a portion of the guidance topics are referenced currently in the Master Index.  If a specific topic is needed and not found in the reference tables, please review the Instructions for Using Interim Guidance, also on this page, for instructions on how to access previous Guidelines and Specifications for Flood Hazard Mapping Partners documents.