Request for Abstracts

Flow & Flourish Convening

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The December floods made it clear: the time for bold action is now. We’ll celebrate proven solutions, confront what’s at stake, and forge community-grounded policies. Flood risk reduction will be our North Star for this gathering, and true to Floodplains by Design roots, we’ll integrate the constellation of outcomes that make floodplain communities thrive.

We are seeking engaging presentations and panel ideas that will communicate important elements of this work. We have five themes identified, with a brief description of each.

 

Submission Themes

The call for abstracts is now open! Deadlines for submissions is July 10, 2026.

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Theme 1: Fund Immediate Needs

This theme is centered on showcasing projects, partnerships, and investments that are prepared to move from planning to action. Think floodplain reconnection, levee improvements, acquisitions and buyouts, critical infrastructure protection, and other multi-benefit efforts that serve communities, agriculture, salmon, and local economies.
Theme Topics
Success Stories

  • Share a project that prevented flood damage or saved money Before/after comparisons that illustrate real outcomes
  • Community impact stories from the ground

Visions for Scale

  • Needs in the context of climate change
  • What is the State’s strategy given the known scale of unmet need?
  • Investment opportunities: what could $X unlock?
  • Models from other states worth importing How to increase funding

Theme 2: Speed Solutions

Proposals are focused on reducing delays and improving the systems that shape project delivery. This theme is about transforming floodplain permitting and related processes so that flood resilience projects can move forward more efficiently, with less duplication, clearer coordination, better habitat restoration outcomes, and stronger public benefit outcomes.
Theme Topics
Permitting Efficiencies

  • Streamlining for public-benefit restoration projects CLOMR/LOMR improvements and FEMA map updates
  • Electronic portal scoping (e.g., Virginia’s PEEP model)

Hazard Mapping & Tech

  • Realities of current mapping Improved flood and Channel Migration Zone mapping
  • State LOMR capacity

Theme 3: Stop the Problem

This theme focuses on management solutions like strategic voluntary acquisitions, pre-disaster buyouts, land use planning, zoning, hazard disclosure, home elevation, relocation, and related policy approaches that help prevent repeated flood losses. Explore how Washington State can mitigate flood risk by guiding development away from high risk areas and creating safety for tribes and communities over time.
Theme Topics
Land Use: Planning

  • How to keep people out of high risk areas [eg. model ordinances, Zoning, ADUs, Low Income housing, BFEs and Freeboard, Reconciling different mapping, enforcement]

Disclosure Information

  • Access Comprehensive pre-contract flood disclosure (like NJ, NY)
  • Public communications Realtor, local government and development perspective

Managed Retreat & Buyouts

  • Voluntary buyout programs: lessons / needs
  • Elevations and flood-proofing pathways
  • Equity-centered approaches for mobile home residents, renters

Recovery & Mitigation Cycles

  • Breaking the rebuild-flood-rebuild loop
  • Post-disaster policy windows and how to use them
  • December 2025 floods: what worked, what didn’t

Theme 4: Build Capacity

Spotlight the collaboration, partnerships, and infrastructure behind the work: technical assistance, peer learning,site tours, mentoring, resource sharing, data access, and communities of practice that help local and regional partners plan, regulate, innovate, and lead. We invite proposals that socialize relationships, tools, and support the systems needed for long-term flood resilience.
Theme Topics
Knowledge & Resources

  • Understanding the Washington policy landscape and how to make meaningful change [Home rule, private property rights]
  • What can we learn from other state or jurisdictional abilities to limit development in high risk areas

Relational Infrastructure

  • Cross sector relationships
  • Building durable coalitions across political lines

Theme 5: Other

Have something that doesn’t fit neatly into the themes above but speaks to integrated floodplain resilience in Washington? We want to hear it. This track is for the proposals that cross categories, challenge the frame, or bring an important perspective, from food security and agriculture, infrastructure and utilities, real estate and housing, economic vibrancy, or community voices that are too often left out of floodplain conversations. Tell us what we’re missing.

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