Emergency Watershed Protection Program (EWP)- Floodplain Easement (FPE)

Purchase of floodplain easements for restoring, protecting, maintaining, and enhancing the functions and values of floodplains, including associated wetlands and riparian areas. Also helps conserve fish and wildlife habitat, water quality, flood water retention, and ground water recharge, as well as safeguard lives and property from floods, drought, and erosion.

NRCS may purchase EWP-FPE permanent easements on floodplain lands that: 1)The floodplain lands were damaged by flooding at least once within the previous calendar year or have been subject to flood damage at least twice within the previous 10 years. 2) Other lands within the floodplain are eligible, provided the lands would contribute to the restoration of the flood storage and flow, provide for control of erosion, or that would improve the practical management of the floodplain easement. 3) Lands would be inundated or adversely impacted as a result of a dam breach.

Climate change is likely to increase flooding risk in many parts of the U.S., which will impact natural resource managers and the productivity and safety of their operation. The EWP-FPE program helps to restore, protect, maintain, and enhance the functions of floodplains, which will allow for a suite of benefits that include providing for fish and wildlife habitat, improving water quality, instituting flood water retention and ground water recharge. These easements may reduce flooding risk by removing some flood-prone land from production while providing financial incentive to landowners who take that land out of production in order to enable more natural floodplain management.