National Flood Data API

Name: National Flood Data API
Brand: National Flood Data API
Availability: InStock

✓ Official Vendor SpecData EnrichmentAddress ValidationapiKey4 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Look up FEMA flood zone, flood risk, elevation, and FEMA flood map panel data for any US address or coordinate.

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the National Flood Data API to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the National Flood Data API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.

Step 1: Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Step 2: Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with National Flood Data API.

Determine the FEMA flood zone for a US street address or latitude/longitude pair

Retrieve a flood risk assessment summarising NFHL hazard layers for a property

Look up ground elevation values for a coordinate to support flood depth analysis

GET STARTED

Start building with National Flood Data API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

The National Flood Data API delivers FEMA flood map data, flood zone determinations, flood risk assessments, and elevation lookups for any US property address or coordinate. It returns the structured FEMA NFHL data layers — flood zone codes, base flood elevations, FIRM panel identifiers, and Letter of Map Change history — that lenders, insurers, and real estate platforms need for compliance and underwriting. Results are sourced directly from FEMA NFHL data and exposed through a small set of GET endpoints suitable for batch lookups.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use National Flood Data API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Mortgage Flood Determination

Mortgage originators must determine whether a property requires flood insurance under federal law before closing a loan. The National Flood Data API returns the FEMA flood zone code, FIRM panel identifier, and Special Flood Hazard Area status for the subject address in a single request, replacing manual map look-ups. A complete determination typically resolves in seconds, allowing the result to be embedded directly in the loan origination system.

Call /flood-zone with the subject property address and return the flood zone code, FIRM panel ID, and SFHA flag for inclusion in the loan file.

Property Insurance Underwriting

Insurance carriers use flood zone and elevation data to price property policies and decide whether to require a separate NFIP or private flood policy. The API combines /flood-zone, /flood-risk, and /elevation responses so an underwriter or rating engine can score flood exposure for a single address in one workflow. This avoids the cost of ordering an external flood certificate for every quote.

For a quoted address, fetch flood zone, flood risk, and elevation, then return a structured underwriting payload containing zone, BFE, and ground elevation.

Real Estate Portfolio Risk Review

Property investors and asset managers review flood exposure across portfolios after FEMA map revisions or following major weather events. Iterating over portfolio addresses against the API surfaces every parcel now sitting in a Special Flood Hazard Area, with FIRM panel and base flood elevation attached. The output supports re-rating insurance, planning mitigation, and triggering disclosure obligations.

Iterate over a CSV of 250 portfolio addresses, call /flood-zone for each, and produce a summary listing every property whose zone begins with A or V.

Agent-Driven Flood Compliance

Agent-built lending and insurance assistants need flood determinations on demand without managing FEMA data ingestion themselves. Through Jentic, an agent searches for the National Flood Data operation by intent and executes the call with a structured address payload, receiving the zone, panel, and risk fields back as JSON. The API key is held in the Jentic vault, so the agent never sees the raw secret.

Search Jentic for 'check FEMA flood zone for an address', load the schema for /flood-zone, and execute it for the borrower's property.

Key Endpoints

4 endpoints — the national flood data api delivers fema flood map data, flood zone determinations, flood risk assessments, and elevation lookups for any us property address or coordinate.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/flood-zone

Get flood zone determination for an address or coordinate

GET

/flood-risk

Get flood risk assessment for a property

GET

/elevation

Get ground elevation for a coordinate

GET

/fema-map

Get the FEMA FIRM map panel for a location

GET

/flood-zone

Get flood zone determination for an address or coordinate

GET

/flood-risk

Get flood risk assessment for a property

GET

/elevation

Get ground elevation for a coordinate

GET

/fema-map

Get the FEMA FIRM map panel for a location

Why Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

The National Flood Data API key is stored encrypted in the Jentic vault and injected into the Authorization header at execution time. Agents receive scoped access — the raw key never enters the agent context.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic by intent (e.g. 'check FEMA flood zone for an address') and Jentic returns the matching National Flood Data operation with its input schema, so the agent calls /flood-zone or /flood-risk without browsing vendor docs.

Time to first call

Direct integration with National Flood Data: 1-2 days for auth, address normalization, and error handling. Through Jentic: under 30 minutes — search, load schema, execute.

FAQs

Specific to using National Flood Data API through Jentic.

What authentication does the National Flood Data API use?

The API uses an API key passed in the Authorization header. Jentic stores the key in its vault and injects it at execution time, so the raw secret never enters the agent's prompt or memory.

Can I get the FEMA flood zone for a single address with the National Flood Data API?

Yes. Send a GET to /flood-zone with the address or latitude/longitude as query parameters and the response contains the FEMA zone code, FIRM panel identifier, and Special Flood Hazard Area indicator pulled from the NFHL dataset.

What are the rate limits for the National Flood Data API?

The OpenAPI spec does not publish rate limits. Account-level throughput is governed by the subscription plan agreed with National Flood Data; check your plan for per-second and monthly quotas before running large batch jobs.

How do I run a flood determination through Jentic?

Run pip install jentic, then use the search query 'check FEMA flood zone for an address' to locate the /flood-zone operation, load its schema, and execute it with your address payload. Sign up at https://app.jentic.com/sign-up to obtain an agent API key.

Does the National Flood Data API return base flood elevation values?

Yes. The /flood-zone and /flood-risk endpoints return base flood elevation where FEMA publishes it for the location, and /elevation returns ground elevation that can be combined with BFE to estimate flood depth.

Is the National Flood Data API free to use?

No. National Flood Data is a paid commercial data service with subscription and per-call pricing. Pricing is set by the vendor at https://nationalflooddata.com — Jentic adds no additional fee on top of the underlying API call.