Data for the project was sourced by resources such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Columbia University's Earth Institute, CUNY's Insitute for Sustainable Cities, The Lamont-Doherty Observatory and Open Data NYC to ultimately analyze the insurance, financial and preventative methods taken by the city of New York.
Contrary to what is commonly believed, a 100-year flood does not mean that only one flood of a major size will strike every 100 years. Instead, it is a probability term to describe the likelihood of a flood occurrance. Scientists have recently replaced the term with the more appropriate "1-percent annual chance flood." This means that there is a 1 percent chance of a major flood happening in any given year. Over a 100-year period, the chances become at least 63.5 percent.