Urban and Regional Planning students in the School of Planning and Public Affairs developed a Story Map to explore and better understand issues surrounding transportation and flooding in the Maquoketa River Watershed. 

This project takes the form of a Story Map. A story map compiles photographs, maps, audio, video, and text into a webpage to tell a story. 

As part of the ICIGO student organization within the Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences, students used GIS to analyze risk factors and indicators of emergency management hotspots in Waterloo.

Community Risk Reduction is defined as “a process to identify and prioritize local risks, followed by the integrated and strategic investment of resources (emergency response and prevention) to reduce their occurrence and impact” (Vision 20/20).

As part of their Senior Design Capstone course, Civil & Environmental Engineering student designed a method to protect county roads and bridges from the migration of the Skunk River in Keokuk County. 

Widening, straightening, embankment work, conduit reconstruction, levees, drainage structures, public and private utilities relocation, bridges, street construction, and appurtenant flood control measures to protect persons and property in the Perry Creek Valley. The project started at the Missouri River and continued north upstream to the city limits. Phases 1 through 4 are complete. The Phase 4 Levee raise was completed to 23rd Street in 2012.

Students in the Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences course GIS for Environmental Studies course conducted a flooding risk assessment for the Cerro Gordo County Emergency Management Agency using HAZUS modeling software.