First Floor Elevation

What is it?

First Floor Elevation (FFE) measures the height of a building’s lowest habitable floor above ground. Derived from high-resolution street-level imagery, it includes data on garage and basement presence in urban Australia.

 

FFE links to both Geoscape Buildings and the Geoscape Geocoded National Address File (G-NAF)

Why is it important?

Flooding is frequent and costly in Australia.

 

First floor elevation is a significant data gap in the management of flood risk. FFE ‘de-averages’ conventional flood models by providing building-level data, rather than relying on area-wide assumptions.

 

This reveals which properties are truly most at risk, enabling better disaster response, more accurate policy pricing, and smarter lending decisions.

Insurance Services

Gain a clearer understanding of risk and exposure, enabling more accurate policy pricing, deeper insight into a portfolio’s flood risk, and improved access to insurance for at-risk properties.

Financial Institutions

Evaluate property elevations in floodplains to understand risk across a book of properties, supporting better lending decisions and improving access to home loans in flood-prone areas.

Government

Strengthen emergency planning and response by pinpointing high-risk areas, improving impact assessments, supporting mitigation efforts, and enabling more resilient urban planning in flood scenarios.

Water Modelling and Engineering

Model dam failures, burst pipes and water-sensitive urban design to gauge flood risk, refine drainage and plan resilient infrastructure and housing.