New flood study reveals America’s most vulnerable communities

Floods are the natural disaster that kill the most people. They are also the most common natural disaster. As the threat of flooding increases worldwide, a group of scientists at LSU have gathered valuable information on flood hazard, exposure and vulnerability in counties throughout the U.S. They studied development trends from 2001 to 2011 and found that urban development has declined in coastal flood zones in general across the U.S. However, development in flood zones in inland counties has grown. These results and more have been published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers.