ulf communities face growing fiscal pressure as flood hazards intensify and aging drainage and roadway systems require costly upgrades. Yet local governments often lack tools that translate flood risk into the budgetary terms used by parish councils, finance offices, and assessors. This project develops and tests a framework that links community-level Average Annual Loss (AAL), parcel-scale flood exposure, and flood-related infrastructure expenditures directly to local revenue structures and long-term budget planning.

We integrate outputs from hydraulic and hydrodynamic models with parcel-level property data to estimate how flood depth–frequency changes alter community AAL and the distribution of damages across building types. These risk metrics are paired with data from parish assessors to quantify implications for assessed value, taxable property bases, and revenue volatility in both high-risk and rapidly developing areas. In parallel, we estimate exposure-driven public costs—such as roadway deterioration, drainage maintenance, and emergency response—under varying flood scenarios. This combined approach provides a long-term fiscal view of flood risk that moves beyond structure-level damages to capture system-wide financial impacts borne by local governments.

We apply the framework in South Louisiana communities where assessors, planners, and public works staff are working to align hazard data with budgeting and capital improvement processes. Early results show that incremental increases in flood frequency can produce measurable declines in taxable value while simultaneously increasing drainage and roadway maintenance needs—generating two-sided fiscal stress that is rarely accounted for in planning decisions.

By linking community AAL estimates, infrastructure exposure costs, and local revenue dynamics, this project offers a transparent, locally adaptable method for integrating flood risk into budgeting and assessments. The framework supports assessors, planners, and elected officials in evaluating mitigation investments, prioritizing capital projects, and strengthening long-term fiscal resilience in flood-exposed Gulf communities.