Where does Miami flood first?
Flood zones, vulnerable tracts, cooling centers and evacuation routes are four portals apart. One question puts them on one composite map.
Dana wanted one map for a briefing: where the water arrives first, and who cannot get out. Marcus asked for exactly that, and NeuraCities built a composite from four county and federal sources.
What went into the score
Four layers, all live from their publishers:
- FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer for the Miami area: 1,000 flood hazard boundary polygons.
- All 707 Miami-Dade census tracts, used as the units of the analysis.
- The county's 25 cooling centers and its 48 primary evacuation routes.
- The analysis joined each tract to the flood zones it sits in, measured the distance to the nearest cooling center and evacuation route, and combined those into a single vulnerability score. The map shades the tracts in five classes, and the chart shows how the 1,815 scored tracts spread across the range.
What the score means
The score is about exposure and access: which tracts flood first and sit furthest from help. Weighting it by who lives there, older residents or lower incomes, is the natural next question, and it is one line in the conversation: ask for the Census variables to be added and the map recalculates.
Miami Climate Vulnerability
Everything above is this conversation. Open it to see the sources, steps and layers, and ask the next question yourself.