The Flood Map for Planning Service includes several layers of information. This includes the Flood Zones data which shows the extent of land at present day risk of flooding from rivers and the sea, ignoring the benefits of defences, for the following scenarios:
• Flood Zone 1 – Land having a less than 0.1% (1 in 1000) annual probability of flooding.
• Flood Zone 2 – Land having between 0.1% - 1% (1 in 100 to 1 in 1000) annual probability of flooding from rivers or between 0.1% - 0.5% (1 in 200 to 1 in 1000) annual probability of flooding from the sea, and accepted recorded flood outlines .
• Flood Zone 3 – Areas shown to be at a 1% (1 in 100) or greater annual probability of flooding from rivers or, 0.5% (1 in 200) or greater annual probability of flooding from the sea.
Flood Zone 1 is not shown in this dataset, but covers all areas not contained within Flood Zones 2 and 3.
Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) use the Flood Zones to determine if they must consult the Environment Agency on planning applications. They are also used to determine if development is incompatible and whether development is subject to the exception test. The Flood Zones are one of several flood risk datasets used to determine the need for planning applications to be supported by a Flood Risk Assessment (FRA) and subject to the sequential test.
The Flood Zones are a composite dataset including national and local modelled data, and information from past floods.
The Flood Zones are designed to only give an indication of flood risk to an area of land and are not suitable for showing whether an individual property is at risk of flooding. This is because we cannot know all the details about each property.
Users of these datasets should always check they are suitable for the intended use.
Please note, if downloading data for an area of interest, all polygons that intersect this area will be provided. Some polygons may be quite large and extend beyond the drawn area of interest. Any polygons that do not intersect the area of interest will not be provided. Please check your area of interest is sufficient or use the data feeds (e.g. WMS) to view the latest available data for all of England. Attribution statement: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2025. All rights reserved.
