To remain in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), your community must meet the minimum standards of the program. The 400 Series of the Community Rating System (CRS) rewards community action taken to go above and beyond the NFIP standards with mapping and regulatory action. 400 Series activites include mapping flood hazards, mapping existing open space, and maintaining flood map continuity. The regulatory activites include implementing higher regulatory standards and managing stormwater. If your community is not urban, it is possible that you will earn your largest pool of credits from Activity 420 Open Space. While Activity 430 Higher Regulatory Standards also has a high credit maximum (2,042), CRS communities average around 270 credits for this section. The table below is adapted from the CRS Coordinator's Manual (2017).

Activity	Maximum Credits Possible	Maximum Credits Earned	Average Points Earned	% of Communities Credited
410 Flood Hazard Mapping	802	576	60	55%
420 Open Space Preservation	2,870	1,603	509	89%
430 Higher Regulatory Standards	2,024	1,335	270	100%
440 Flood Data Maintenance	222	249	115	95%
450 Stormwater Management	755	605	132	87%

Since many of the activities in this Series only apply to a geographical subset of your community (for example, the Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA)), many of the elements utilize both impact adjustments and growth rate adjustments.

Some elements in this section also have an "Optional Minimal Value". This value will be listed, if applicable, in each element's "Credit Calculations" section. The Optional Minimal Value is a percentage of the total credit amount possible for each element. You might choose to use it instead of calculating your total credits using an impact adjustment if (1) you don't have the data to calculate the impact adjustment or (2) the impact adjustment would result in fewer points than using the Optional Minimal Value. Some of the impact adjustments that you will use in this Series will rely on calculated areas. In order to document your impact adjustment calculation, you might have to produce an impact adjustment map.