Presented at WV GeoConf in Morgantown, WV, June 2026

Flood Fatality Mapping (Whitney Belcher, WV GIS Technical Center)
Limited research and mapping have been done of flood fatalities from riverine flood disasters and post-disaster mitigation in West Virginia.  As part of the WV Risk Explorer (www.wvfrf.org/WVRE), the WV GIS Technical Center has mapped specific locations of over 500 flood fatalities along with post-mitigation measures implemented for the 12 deadliest flood events (1870 to 2016) in the state.  The focus of this research has been to quantify flood fatalities and associated flood characteristics, demographic variables, and behavioral patterns of flood victims in shared dashboards, story maps, and reports.  This mapping research also reviews the circumstances of mass casualties where three or more victims died at the same location or were related.  This research confirms that flash floods are the leading cause of flood-related fatalities, younger and older populations are more vulnerable, and behavioral factors like overconfidence and underestimating risk significantly increase mortality.