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You should summon Beej67 for real answers. Just some thoughts from a nobody: common sense, knowing your risk tolerance, and a satellite image can get you pretty far. Don’t be within 20 vertical feet of anywhere a meandering river has ever been. Avoid being at the end of a draw, and in a non-meandering river valley, look for areas where the river has been before, then double or triple the vertical distance. Flow data usually goes back quite a while, but visually, you should be able to ask yourself, "How did that rock end up like that?" You should have to work to get to water, if it's easy to get to you're at flood risk. There's also an element of you don't have to outrun the bear just another person. If there's a path for water to go flood some massive other area get hire then that.
Maybe I get to cheat in my area because I live in an area in the path of ARkStorm so worst case is pretty observable.
I’ve found maps useful for identifying hidden flood dangers, like streams that have been fully encased for a significant distance. The flood maps will show the risk. The heuristic I use is: "If this disaster did occur, would its consequences be so severe that I’d be affected indirectly no matter what?" Maximizing mitigation of the Yellowstone caldera erupting probably isn’t worth much of your time, since the economic effects would be catastrophic, and you'd likely need to become a prepper if you truly want to mitigate that.
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