Environment

Flood zones

Land with a medium or high chance of flooding from rivers or the sea, ignoring flood defences, from the planning flood maps for England and Wales.

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Published by
Environment AgencyNatural Resources Wales
Level of detail
Outline (map point level)
Published for
Map point
Covers
England and Wales
Updates
Every few years
Data period
Not recorded for this layer. The dates below are when it was published and fetched.
Published
15 July 2026
Fetched by Open Index
15 October 2026
Licence
Open Government Licence 3.0

Where it covers

  • England
  • Wales
  • Scotland(not covered)
  • Northern Ireland(not covered)

Scotland's flood maps use a different model; coming later.

Northern Ireland's flood maps aren't open data. DfI Rivers licenses them commercially through Land & Property Services.

How it is made

Open Index shows the figures as Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales publish them, for the areas they were published for: map points.

Larger areas use the publisher’s own figures, never an average of smaller areas.

Before you use it

  • Flood zone 3 is land with a 1% or greater chance of flooding from rivers each year, or 0.5% or greater from the sea. Flood zone 2 is land with a chance between that and 0.1%. Everywhere else is flood zone 1.
  • The zones ignore flood defences, so some land behind walls and embankments is shown even though it is protected today.
  • They don't cover surface water (heavy rain that can't drain away), which is mapped separately.
  • These maps are made for planning decisions. They are not a flood risk score for any one property.
  • England's zones come from the Environment Agency and Wales's from Natural Resources Wales, using their own models, so outlines can change at the border.

Colours on the map

Sources and licences

Flood Map for Planning, Flood Zones (England)
Environment Agency
Edition
Flood Zones 2026-07-15
Published
15 July 2026
Fetched by Open Index
15 October 2026
Licence
Open Government Licence 3.0
Credit line

© Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2025. All rights reserved.

Flood Map for Planning, Flood Zones 2 and 3 (Wales)
Natural Resources Wales
Edition
Flood Map for Planning 2026-05-21
Published
21 May 2026
Fetched by Open Index
15 October 2026
Licence
Open Government Licence 3.0
Credit line

Contains Natural Resources Wales information © Natural Resources Wales and database right. All rights reserved. Some features of this information are based on digital spatial data licensed from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology © UKCEH. Defra, Met Office and DARD Rivers Agency © Crown copyright. © Cranfield University. © James Hutton Institute. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right.

Use this data

GET /v1/layers/flood-zones

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