Updating a database with determined change identifiers

Abstract

In various embodiments, old flood maps may be compared to new flood maps to determine which areas of the flood map have changed. These changed areas may be correlated against geographic area descriptions that are within changed areas of the flood map. The changed areas may also be analyzed to determine whether each area has had a change in status (e.g., from a high risk flood zone to a non-high risk flood zone or vice versa) or a change in zone within a status (e.g., from one flood zone to another flood zone). The information on type of change (or no change) may be used to populate a database that includes geographic area description identifiers. In some embodiments, detection of certain types of changes may initiate a manual comparison of the old and new flood maps to verify the change.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method, comprising:
 comparing a first flood map to an updated second flood map, said first flood map and said updated second flood map each including flood zones and non-flood zones;   determining one or more demarcated areas based on the comparison of the first flood map to the updated second flood map;   determining a change identifier to assign to at least one geographic area description associated with a demarcated area of the one or more demarcated areas, wherein the determining includes:
 assigning the at least one geographic area description an identifier indicating no change; 
 assigning the at least one geographic area description an identifier indicating change in zone if the at least one geographic area description is associated with a demarcated area of the one or more demarcated areas with a change in zone; and 
 assigning the at least one geographic area description an identifier indicating change in risk level status if the at least one geographic area description is associated with at least one demarcated area of the one or more demarcated areas with a change in risk level status; and 
   storing the identifier determined for the at least one geographic area description in a database.