About Flood Risk Checker: How This Site Works And Where Its Data Comes From
Flood Risk Checker is an independent website that turns official UK flood risk data into a plain-English answer for one address, town or river. It is not a government service, and it is funded by advertising and disclosed referral partnerships.
The site brings together data published by the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, so that a flood risk band, a Flood Zone, a nearby river gauge and any live warnings can be read in one place instead of four.
Is Flood Risk Checker An Official Government Website?
Flood Risk Checker is not an official government website. It republishes government data under the Open Government Licence, but it is not run by, funded by or endorsed by any public body.
floodriskchecker.co.uk is an independent website. It is not run by, or affiliated with, the Environment Agency, Defra, SEPA, Natural Resources Wales or any government body.
The official services remain the authoritative source, and each of our pages names and links to the service it draws on so any figure can be checked against the publisher:
| Nation | Official service |
|---|---|
| England | Check your long term flood risk and the Flood Map for Planning |
| Wales | Natural Resources Wales flood maps |
| Scotland | SEPA flood maps |
| Northern Ireland | Flood Maps NI, DfI Rivers |
If a figure on this site disagrees with the official service, the official service is right and we want to know. Report it through our corrections policy.
Who Publishes Flood Risk Checker?
Flood Risk Checker is published and edited independently. It is not owned by an insurer, a broker, a developer, a surveying firm or a property portal, and no commercial partner has any say over a flood risk figure, a ranking or the wording of an explanation.
The site is reached at editor@floodriskchecker.co.uk and through the contact page. Editorial questions, data challenges and corrections all go to the same address, and what happens to each one is set out in the corrections policy.
Rather than asking readers to trust a name, this site is built so its work can be checked:
- Every fact names its source and the date it was verified. Each page ends with a source table.
- Every calculation is published. The methodology sets out exactly how a town's figures are produced.
- Every dataset is listed with its licence. See data sources.
- Every correction is logged publicly, with the date and what changed.
Why Does This Site Exist?
This site exists because the answer to "is this house at risk of flooding?" is spread across several official services that use different terms. England alone publishes the flood risk band and the Flood Zone in two separate services, and they can disagree for the same address.
The site aims to do three things the official services do not do together:
- Show every source at once — rivers and the sea, surface water, reservoirs and groundwater where data exists, alongside the Flood Zone.
- Explain disagreements — for example, why a Flood Zone 3 house can be Low risk.
- Compare places — ranking towns within a county by the share of homes at risk, using a published method.
How Is Content On Flood Risk Checker Written And Checked?
Every factual statement on this site is traced to a named official or primary source and checked word for word against that source before publication. Figures that change, such as insurance premiums or national statistics, are held in one register and rechecked on a schedule.
The editorial process is:
- Source first. A fact is added only after the exact wording is found on the publisher's own page or document. Summaries, search snippets and third-party articles are not accepted as sources.
- One figure, one place. Each shared figure is stored once and used everywhere, so a correction updates every page at the same time.
- Automated source checking. Stored facts are re-fetched from the publisher and compared against the original wording, so a silently changed figure is caught rather than left standing.
- Scheduled rechecks. Pages carrying the most time-sensitive facts — insurance premiums, planning policy and statistics — are reviewed whenever their source changes.
- Dated sources. Every article ends with a table of its sources and the date they were verified.
- Where sources disagree, both are shown. Where two official figures conflict, this site publishes the range and names both publishers rather than choosing one silently.
- Public corrections. Errors are fixed and logged on the corrections policy page.
How place figures are calculated is set out in our methodology, and every dataset used is listed in data sources.
Which Sources Does Flood Risk Checker Rely On?
Flood Risk Checker relies on data published by the UK's flood risk authorities, the national mapping and statistics agencies, and the bodies that run flood insurance and flood support schemes. The full dataset list, with licences, is on data sources.
| Purpose | Publisher |
|---|---|
| Flood risk and Flood Zones, England | Environment Agency |
| Flood risk, Wales | Natural Resources Wales |
| Flood risk, Scotland | Scottish Environment Protection Agency |
| Flood risk, Northern Ireland | Department for Infrastructure, Rivers |
| Live river levels and warnings | Environment Agency real-time flood-monitoring API |
| Weather and storm naming | Met Office |
| Postcodes, rivers and boundaries | Ordnance Survey and the Office for National Statistics |
| River flow records and trends | National River Flow Archive |
| Flood insurance scheme | Flood Re |
| Insurance industry guidance | Association of British Insurers and the British Insurance Brokers' Association |
| Support for flooded households | National Flood Forum |
| Legislation | legislation.gov.uk |
How Does Flood Risk Checker Make Money?
Flood Risk Checker is funded by display advertising and by referral partnerships with insurance and flood protection providers, which pay us when a reader follows a link and buys. Partner links are labelled on the page where they appear.
Our rules for commercial content are:
- No payment changes a flood risk figure, a ranking or the wording of an explanation.
- Referral links are labelled as partner links wherever they appear.
- Insurance and protection offers do not appear on pages for places at the lowest risk, because there is nothing to sell those readers.
- Advertising is switched off on warning modules while a Severe Flood Warning is in force anywhere the site covers.
- No advertising or referral links appear on emergency pages, including what to do in a flood and after a flood.
Current partners are named on the pages where their links appear. This site does not accept paid guest posts, sponsored articles or paid links in editorial content.
What Does Flood Risk Checker Not Do?
Flood Risk Checker does not give advice, assess individual properties or respond to emergencies. It explains published data and points to the people who can act on it.
| This site is not | For that, contact |
|---|---|
| An emergency service | 999 if life is at risk; Floodline on 0345 988 1188 for warnings |
| A regulator or flood risk authority | The Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales, SEPA or DfI Rivers |
| Authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority | An FCA-authorised insurer or broker for insurance advice |
| A flood risk consultancy or surveyor | A qualified consultant for a site-specific flood risk assessment or survey |
| A conveyancing or legal service | A solicitor or licensed conveyancer for a flood search |
| A source of property-level certainty | The Environment Agency states its service does not tell you how likely it is that an individual property will flood |
How Do You Report An Error Or Contact The Site?
An error is reported through the contact page or by email to editor@floodriskchecker.co.uk, and is handled under the published corrections policy. Reports that affect safety, such as a wrong emergency number, are treated the same day.
- Report a wrong figure or explanation: corrections policy.
- General, press or partnership enquiries: contact.
- Challenge official flood map data: the publisher decides this, not us. The routes for each nation are on the corrections policy page.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Flood risk and river level data supplied by the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.