The Maryland Department of the Environment has signed a Cooperating Technical Community (CTC) agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to create a new type of floodplain map in Saint Mary’s County, Maryland. These new maps are called D-FIRM’s or Digital FIRM’s by FEMA and they will replace the current Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM) panels. The maps will define the100-year floodplain boundary in the County and they will be created digitally so that they can be viewed on the web or printed out in a standard paper format. The original paper maps are difficult to maintain, hard to read, and costly to update.

MDE has been selected as a CTC community because Maryland is taking an aggressive role in revamping their floodplain maps digitally. MDE hopes to create a method of modernizing and maintaining the State’s entire floodplain library electronically. This process is the first step in our efforts to maintain and share with the communities involved all the resources necessary for up to date floodplain management.​