--- title: Researcher’s 3D Model Warns of Flood Risks to Local Communities date: 2026-10-01T05:30:00-04:00 author: University of Maryland canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/researchers-3d-model-warns-of-flood-risks-to-local-communities" section: Articles --- # Researcher’s 3D Model Warns of Flood Risks to Local Communities *October 1, 2026* — by [John Tucker](/author/john-tucker) > UMD Research Changes Lives: Baltimore, Prince George’s County leaders tap UMD scholar to map looming disasters. *East lafayette 1920x1080 — A still from a UMD-created 3D flood-visualization model shows submerged streets in Baltimore. This technology is helping community members advocate for change with city officials. (Courtesy of Christopher Ellis)* Each time a heavy storm pounds Baltimore, the basin in which Stefanie Paige’s home sits begins to fill. Formed by four sloping streets converging at her intersection, it dumps floodwater into her basement, topples her plants and occasionally engulfs the front steps of neighboring homes. “This area has been flooding so much that the street is going to start sinking,” said Paige, who lives in a rowhome in the city’s Broadway East neighborhood, pointing to a gouge in the road as proof. The flooding has increased recently, hammering homes now boarded and vacant. Paige and neighbors had been asking city officials to fix the problem, and more recently community leaders presented 3D evidence to authorities: a [flood-visualization model](https://youtu.be/NIeeLNBJOCc) created by a University of Maryland researcher that has substantiated concerns. Over the past year, city officials have donned virtual reality (VR) goggles and viewed the animated, street-level representation of the neighborhood as if hit by a 10-year-flood—a once-a-decade event—featuring submarine-like cars with just their tops visible and water encroaching on doorways. The four-block simulation captures details like Broadway East street signs, iron gates and partially submerged basement windows “We’re trying to help people visualize the future in 3D, kind of like a time machine,” said Christopher Ellis, professor of [plant science and landscape architecture](https://psla.umd.edu/home/), who detailed the technology in a [paper recently published](https://gispoint.de/gisopen-paper/9432-comparison-of-traditional-2d-and-stereoscopic-3d-flood-visualization-in-supporting-flood-risk-assessment.html?IDjournalTitle=6&cHash=a61907bf26c28fde2dfbb235c83035fe) in the *Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture*. “If you can visualize a flood before it happens, you can do something about it before it causes pain.” In response, city officials have shown up to community meetings, referred residents to funding opportunities and engaged in conversations about infrastructure upgrades, according to Doris Minor-Terrell, president and CEO of the [Broadway East Community and CDC](https://broadwayeast-cdc.org/), a grassroots nonprofit. “Chris’ report was the beginning of making the community aware of what was going on,” she said. “Had it not been for his report pointing out where the water was coming from and what stormwater management system was needed, we wouldn’t have known what next steps to take.” Funded by a [UMD Grand Challenges Grant](https://research.umd.edu/grand-challenges-grants), Ellis’ assistance in Broadway East began last year at a community meeting where residents asked why their basements were so prone to floods. He pointed to aging stormwater infrastructure, unequipped to handle the increasingly menacing rainfall largely caused by changing weather and climate patterns. Like other working-class Baltimore neighborhoods, Broadway East was built atop a network of streams. A century ago, engineers ran pipes inside those waterways, then buried them in soil. Now, those “ghost streams” often max out pipe capacity, forcing stormwater upward and into basements. Meantime, disaster agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency never incorporated ghost streams into their flood projections, Ellis said—“they’re totally off the floodplain radar”—leaving many residents in lower-income areas at risk of hard-to-predict flooding. \[[*Team wades into homeowners’ sewage spills and braves failing public infrastructure to track health risks*](https://today.umd.edu/waste-watchers)\] To test his latest technology, Ellis has been traveling to Broadway East and other Maryland communities with students, using a 15-foot laser tripod and drone to capture 100s of different vantage points, then pairing his data with Baltimore municipal data to track the floodwater’s pathway. When residents and later, city officials, strapped on Ellis’ VR goggles, things clicked. “When you have a visual in front of you showing what your water line would look like in 10 years, that’s a reality check,” said Minor-Terrell. “When \[Department of Public Works\] officials and engineers started coming to meetings, we shared Chris’ report. They listened to us and finally said, ‘OK, this is real.’” *Rendering of cross streets in Baltimore with cars submerged in water. — A still from the [flood-visualization model](https://youtu.be/NIeeLNBJOCc) showing submerged streets in Baltimore's Broadway East neighborhood.* That momentum dovetailed with community efforts to develop a park on a vacant block despite heavy rains that transform it into a mud pit. Commissioned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the design firm AECOM this summer released a 195-page report acknowledging the neighborhood’s ghost streams, deteriorating pipes and “historical flooding and environmental stress.” Still, the city has several options to rebuild underground infrastructure, improve water quality and make the park a reality, the report said. In cities beyond Baltimore, 3D flood models could pinpoint vulnerable homes and prompt residents to empty sheds, board up windows or evacuate, rather than them “getting a general weather alert on the radio and shrugging it off,” said Ellis. Municipal planners, meanwhile, could assess where to construct new buildings and parking lots, and where to fortify or elevate others. (Ellis said his model has already prompted developers to pause new housing construction in flood prone areas of Broadway East.) This summer Prince George’s County officials commissioned Ellis to deliver [two](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmbRfxSieYI) [models](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIeeLNBJOCc) projecting a 100-year flood impacting a commercial strip off Kenilworth Avenue, just east of Discovery District Maryland. In 2022, pouring rain [swallowed cars and threatened businesses](https://wjla.com/news/local/prince-georges-county-community-weather-severe-storms-floods-flooding-businesses-cars-apartment-riverdale-park-restore-monday-fire-department-rescues) in the area. Ellis is now developing 3D simulation technology to visualize damage wrought by increasingly common one- or two-hour tempests that often unload water at faster rates than storms measured across traditional, 24-hour data-collection periods. He’s also fine-tuning his designs to capture details as fine as residents’ doorknobs, as he works to augment the existing 2D map approach that state and local disaster agencies still rely on. “We don’t live in a two-dimensional world,” he said. “Why are we still making life-or-death decisions with the limitations of two-dimensional data?” **Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research) **Tags:** [Plant Science and Landscape Architecture](https://today.umd.edu/topic/plant-science-and-landscape-architecture), [Research Impact](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research-impact), [Grand Challenges](https://today.umd.edu/topic/grand-challenges), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research) **Units:** [College of Agriculture and Natural Resources](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-agriculture-and-natural-resources)