New Smart Phone Mapping App is On Its Way!

Mapping with the “Sea Level Rise” phone app - photo courtesy of Vicki Cronis Nohe

SNAPSHOT: Wetlands Watch will be rolling out a brand new version of its smart phone app so that Virginians can start mapping flood events in their communities. The information collected will help local governments design the flood resilience plans needed to obtain funding from the Community Flood Preparedness Fund.

BACKSTORY: In 2014, Wetlands Watch launched a smart phone app it had developed to allow citizens to map flooding in their communities. The idea was to give people the tools to start finding solutions to their flooding problems. We also wanted to use the phone mapping network as a way of organizing Virginia’s citizens to advocate for flooding solutions.

In 2017, Virginian Pilot reporter, Dave Mayfield, came up with the idea of coordinating a major flood mapping event around the so-called “King Tide,” the fall perigean high tide. This first “Catch the King Tide” event put us in the Guinness Record Books! We now have a network of hundreds of mappers.

But the old “Sea Level Rise” app was aging and we needed to update it: many smart phones could no longer use the ancient operating system. With the help of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) we secured funding to update the app.

To make things more exciting, the funding will also support a full-time organizer for the mapping work, someone who will be working to expand the coverage of the mapping app and network statewide.

Look for more areas getting better flooding information in the coming year!