Southwark Flood Risk
Southwark has a Very low flood risk from rivers and the sea , with 0% of homes in a Medium or High band. The nearest gauge is 5.8 km away.
Southwark has 307,983 residents and 147,345 homes. Ranked 3078 of 7,114 in England for rivers and sea flood risk.
What Is The River Level Near Southwark Right Now?
Read from the Environment Agency flood-monitoring feed at 20 Sept, 14:34 UTC. The highest level on record here is 1.204 m , reached on 9 June 1992.
Why Are Parts Of Southwark In Flood Zone 3 But Rated Low Risk?
59.3% of postcodes in Southwark fall in Flood Zone 3, but the flood risk band for rivers and the sea is verylow. The two maps measure different things: the Flood Zone ignores defences, and the band counts them.
When Has Southwark Flooded Before?
The Environment Agency holds 4 recorded flood outlines covering Southwark, the most recent dated 31 December 1928.
Absence of a record is not evidence that a place has never flooded — the Environment Agency states that a lack of coverage does not mean an area has never flooded.
What Does Southwark's Flood Risk Classification Mean?
59.3% of postcodes in Southwark sit in Flood Zone 3, the planning band for land with a 1% or greater annual chance of river flooding or 0.5% or greater of sea flooding — and the map that draws it deliberately ignores flood defences.
The flood risk band for rivers and the sea is Very low , with 0% of homes in a Medium or High band. Unlike the Flood Zone, the band counts the defences that are actually in place, which is why the two can describe the same street differently and both be right.
Southwark is one of the places where they disagree most in England: a large share of its postcodes are in Flood Zone 3, yet few of its homes carry a Medium or High band. The gap is the defences — land the planning map must treat as floodplain, behind a barrier that lowers the present-day chance of flooding.
Which Postcode Districts Cover Southwark?
Each district below is one postcode district that falls inside Southwark. The band is the one shared by most of that district's postcodes, so it describes the district rather than a single street — enter a full postcode in the checker for one address. A district can cover more than one town, and the district pages linked from the checker are keyed to the town that holds most of its postcodes.
| Postcode district | Postcodes here | Rivers and sea band | Surface water addresses |
|---|---|---|---|
| SE1 | 1,579 | Low | 10,534 |
| SE15 | 1,120 | High | 10,643 |
| SE16 | 1,011 | Low | 5,813 |
| SE5 | 697 | High | 4,106 |
| SE17 | 654 | Low | 4,153 |
| SE22 | 489 | High | 2,775 |
| SE21 | 162 | Low | 406 |
| SE24 | 79 | Low | 450 |
| SE19 | 58 | High | 208 |
| SE11 | 55 | Low | 330 |
| SE23 | 27 | High | 97 |
| SE26 | 19 | High | 66 |
| SE8 | 18 | Low | 104 |
| SE14 | 7 | Medium | 129 |
| SE4 | 2 | Not mapped — no rivers-and-sea band covers this district | not published for this district |
"Not mapped" is not "no risk". It means no rivers-and-sea band covers that district in the source — surface water can still flood it, and both Camden and Islington flooded from surface water in July 2021 while carrying no mapped rivers-and-sea band.
What Else Is Near Southwark?
Other places on the River Ravensbourne, nearest to Southwark first.