Who is it for?

The Floodplain Prioritization Tool (FP Tool) is designed to help decision-makers identify and prioritize areas for restoration or conservation that are likely to be most effective along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. It is expected to help federal, state and local governments, county planners, land trusts or even businesses and citizens optimize their investments in floodplain restoration or conservation. (See the chart below.)

For the portfolio of priority sites identified throughout the basin, the Floodplain Prioritization Tool allows stakeholders to identify priorities and assess tradeoffs related to nutrient removal, wildlife habitat, flooding and other goals.

The FP tool is expected to be most useful when applied in partnership with local planners and decision-makers. For example, the FP Tool is helping inform a collaborative floodplain management plan for Missouri’s Lower Meramec River that’s being guided by an integrated, multi-disciplinary planning process through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Silver Jackets program. Here, the partners have created a pilot, localized version of the FP Tool that demonstrates the potential to adapt the basin-scale version to local partnerships and local floodplain management projects.