The Environment Agency has published new national risk information for flooding and coastal erosion, including future scenarios accounting for climate change.
The latest guidance provides information on the important changes and the Agency’s phased approach to publication, including:
- August 2025 onwards: Further NaFRA datasets on ‘flood map for planning’ and on data.gov.uk - details can on Defra Data Services Platform
- 25 March 2025: New NaFRA ‘flood zone’ data on ‘flood map for planning’ and available on data.gov.uk - the service allows developers and planners to find the data they need to undertake flood risk assessments
- 28 January 2025: New National Flood Risk Assessment (NaFRA) ‘Risk of flooding from rivers and sea’ and ‘Risk of flooding from surface water’ data
- 28 January 2025: New National Coastal Erosion Risk Map (NCERM) data
New national flood risk assessment (NaFRA)
The new NaFRA:
- provides a single picture of current and future flood risk from rivers and the sea, and from surface water
- uses both existing detailed local information and improved national data
- includes the potential impact of climate change on flood risk, based on UK Climate Projections (UKCP18)
- shows potential flood depths
- provides much higher resolution maps that make it easier to see where there is risk
The EA has also updated its flood risk information using a new process which has been developed for the new national flood risk assessment. The EA says that local modelling of flood risk often captures important local features better than national modelling. The process combines new and existing data to improve the national flood risk maps, including:
- outputs from detailed local flood risk models
- a new state-of-the-art national flood risk model
The new national model is a significant improvement on existing national modelling, according to the EA ; the Agency will use outputs from the national model in areas where it does not have high-quality local modelling.
The new process has resulted in a range of improvements to national flood risk mapping, including:
- greater consistency between local and national flood risk information
- additional risk information, including flood depth
- finer spatial resolution for flood risk from rivers and sea
Future scenarios accounting for climate change
The EA has also published new national flood risk information accounting for climate change and is generating future scenarios of anticipated change using climate change allowances, including:
- peak river flow
- peak rainfall intensity
- sea level rise
- offshore wind speed and extreme wave height
The Agency says the Defra Data Services Platform (DSP) provides the best available information on flood risk and makes national flood risk data freely and openly available to a wide range of users.
Click here for more information about the datasets available via the DSP.
maps of flood depth
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