Floods could do nearly $2.3 billion in damage across the fast-growing western edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the next half century, according to preliminary findings from the North Central Texas Council of Governments reported Friday by KERA News.
The figure comes from the council's Integrated Transportation and Stormwater Infrastructure Study, which began in 2023 to look at how roads, drainage and new development can be planned together to limit flooding. The early results cover parts of Johnson, Hood, Parker and Tarrant counties.
More pavement, more runoff
The study's central concern is pavement. It estimates that roads, parking lots, sidewalks and other hard surfaces covered 6.4% of the study area in 2020 and could cover 35.2% by 2070. Rain that once soaked into open ground would instead run off toward creeks and the Trinity River system downstream.
"If we develop those areas to the same density as Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and all the cities in between, does our downstream watershed have capacity? And the easy answer is no," Susan Alvarez, the council's director of environment and development, told KERA.
The damage estimate includes current and future buildings and what is inside them, vehicles, and displacement costs such as temporary housing for families forced out of their homes.
