Flood risk zones

Screen

Stages

• Backlog
• Screen
• Research

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These are the questions we answer during the Screen stage.

Answering them wil help us learn more about the Flood risk zones consideration, determine if a data standard is required and whether we know enough to move on to the next stage.

• What is the 'Flood risk zones' consideration?

  A flood risk zone is an area categorised based on the probability of river or sea flooding, being zones 1 (lowest probability), 2, and 3a and 3b (highest probability).

• Is there legislation that defines 'Flood risk zones'?

  Yes

  • What is the legislation that defines 'Flood risk zones'?

    There is no legislation that defines flood risk zones into 1, 2 and 3, but there is legislation that states that flood risk areas must be identified in section 13 of the flood risk regulation 2009.

    " The Environment Agency must— determine in relation to each river basin district whether, in its opinion, there is a significant flood risk from— the sea, main rivers, and reservoirs, and identify the part of the river basin district affected by that risk (the “flood risk area”)."

  • What is the specific part of the legislation that describes how a 'Flood risk zones' gets designated?

    Part 2 of The Flood Risk Regulations 2009 outlines "Preliminary flood risk assessments", and is broken down into: * Preliminary assessment maps * Preliminary assessment reports * Publication * Review

    The legislation does not dictate how flood risk areas are split up into zones 1, 2 and 3.

  • What is the specific part of the legislation that requires the publication of 'Flood risk zones'?

    Regulation 22 of The Flood Risk Regulations 2009 states that "The Environment Agency must publish the flood hazard maps and flood risk maps prepared by the Agency and the lead local flood authorities for each river basin district."

• Who, in law, is responsible for the planning consideration or makes decisions about 'Flood risk zones'?

• Which organisations do we think should publish the data?

• Is the Flood risk zones a trigger?

• Is the Flood risk zones something to consult during plan making?

• Is there any Flood risk zones data already available?

  Yes

  • What Flood risk zones data is currently available?

    • Item 1

      • Delete
      • Edit
      • url: https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/cf494c44-05cd-4060-a029-35937970c9c6/flood-map-for-planning-rivers-and-sea-flood-zone-2
      • name: Flood Map for Planning (Rivers and Sea) - Flood Zone 2
      • fields: FID;Shape;LAYER;TYPE
      • licence: OGL
      • coverage: National
      • publisher: Environment Agency
      • attribution: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2023. All rights reserved. Some features of this map are based on digital spatial data from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, © NERC (CEH). © Crown Copyright and Database Rights 2023 OS AC0000807064.
      • metadata_url: https://environment.data.gov.uk/api/file/download?fileDataSetId=0715ee89-f9ce-4ad5-93ec-bf06b35971b1&fileName=Guidance_Flood_Zone_2_v6_1.pdf

    • Item 2

      • Delete
      • Edit
      • url: https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/04532375-a198-476e-985e-0579a0a11b47
      • name: Flood map for planning - Flood zones
      • fields: OBJECTID;Shape;Origin;Flood_zone;Flood_source
      • licence: Open Government Licence
      • coverage: National
      • publisher: Environment Agency
      • attribution: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2025. All rights reserved.
      • metadata_url: https://environment.data.gov.uk/file-management-open/data-sets/455d2eb3-3065-4d20-871b-c4d5dee23f67/files/Flood%20Zones%20Product%20Description.pdf

• Do we think the data should come from a single source?

  Yes - this data is available from the Environment Agency nationally.

• Will a data standard be required?

  No