HighTide partnered with the City of Satellite Beach, Florida, to pilot the HighTide platform during the City’s latest sea level rise and storm surge assessment, funded by the Resilient Florida program under the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). HighTide conducted the impact assessment, using SURF, to provide the City with valuable insights across three dimensions: economic impacts to buildings and the City’s property taxes, as well the socioeconomic impacts at the neighborhood- scale in terms of the number of households at risk of displacement. The results were made available to the City as data files, on the HighTide platform, and a summary report, which helped to justify the value of flood mitigation efforts to the City’s council.
Note. Projected financial impact of various flood events on the City of Satellite Beach, Florida, up to the year 2100.
Through an iterative feedback process to improve the HighTide platform, the City made it clear that it was a priority to help citizens understand their building’s flood risk, as well as potential solutions. Inspired, HighTide took the initiative to develop a platform parallel to the HighTide platform designed specifically for homeowners, named Arkly. The purpose of Arkly is to provide homeowners with building-level flood risk data and potential solutions, including insurance and mitigation. With Arkly, HighTide made its Florida-wide dataset on building-level sea level rise and storm surge risk available to the public, specifically to all coastal counties, for free. The City invited HighTide’s CEO to demo a prototype of Arkly at a public flood risk workshop, during which citizens responded positively to the building-level data and felt assured that there were solutions available to them.
HighTide remains committed to supporting the City of Satellite Beach through their HighTide platform subscription. The ongoing collaboration provides the City with flood risk management tools that are constantly being developed to better serve multiple government officials, such as resilience officers and floodplain managers. As a direct result of this project, HighTide identified an opportunity to further support the City by leveraging Arkly to earn the City flood insurance discounts through the National Flood Insurance Programs’ (NFIP) Community Rating System. HighTide aims to demonstrate the value of the HighTide platform by helping all NFIP policy-holders in the City save at least 10% flood insurance discount. This is just one example of HighTide’s commitment and mission to support communities on their journey to mitigate flooding and adapt to sea level rise, bolstering a resilient community.
