Link to data
Prepared by: Helena M. Garcia, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Kathryn Foster, Cornell University
Date: June 2026
Original Authors: Helena M. Garcia, Antonia Sebastian, Kieran P. Fitzmaurice, Miyuki Hino, Elyssa L. Collins, Gregory W. Characklis
About the data:
The North Carolina Flood Extent Archive (NC-FLDEX) is a dataset that includes flood extent rasters for 78 flood events in North Carolina. The data are created using address-level NFIP Claims, NFIP Redacted Claims and Policies, USGS 30m Elevation, NLCD Fractional Impervious Surface, ERA5 Hourly Precipitation, NHD Coastline, NC OneMap Major Hydrography, Height Above Nearest Drainage (HAND), Soil Hydraulic Conductivity (ksat), and FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA).
Data are available on:
The North Carolina Flood Extent Archive (NC-FLDEX) is a dataset that includes 30-meter-resolution flood extent rasters for 78 flood events that occurred in the eastern three-quarters of North Carolina between 1996 and 2020. The rasters represent binary flood extents (1= likely flooded) and are derived from address-scale National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims and policy data. NFIP data were used to create flood presence and flood absence points to train machine learning models to estimate flood probabilities at every 30-meter cell in the study area. The NC-FLDEX archive includes event-specific rasters, contextual information (e.g., event name, date), and a cumulative exposure raster summarizing the flood frequency in each cell across all 78 events.
NC-FLDEX can be combined with other spatial datasets to quantify flood exposure at multiple spatial scales, examine historical flood patterns and frequencies, and compare exposure across specific events. The 30m NC-FLDEX rasters can be aggregated to census, ZCTA, watershed, or county boundaries (not limited to these, but these are common options) or used directly with building footprint or individual-level location data (e.g., residential address histories, mobile phone location data).
Citation:
Garcia, Helena M.; Sebastian, Antonia; Fitzmaurice, Kieran P.; Hino, Miyuki; Collins, Elyssa L.; Characklis, Gregory W., 2024, “Flood Extent Rasters (30m) for 78 NC-FLDEX Events 1996-2020”, https://doi.org/10.15139/S3/DOKK16, UNC Dataverse, V7, UNF:6:MbKrcmsVu0yVRbJ1Fl2IjA== [fileUNF]
Garcia, H. M., Sebastian, A., Fitzmaurice, K. P., Hino, M., Collins, E. L., & Characklis, G. W. (2025). Reconstructing repetitive flood exposure across 78 events from 1996 to 2020 in North Carolina, USA. Earth’s Future, 13, e2025EF006026. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF006026