Information requirements

Information local authorities are required to have in order to manage flood risk effectively.


Under the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), category 1 responders are required to have plans in place to respond to all emergencies. Local resilience forums have been working together to develop multi-agency flood plans appropriate to the level of risk from most types of flooding.

Risk assessment should drive the emergency planning process. It should inform emergency plans, and Business Continuity plans, which should then be tested through audit and validation exercises.

Regular updating of the risk assessment is likely to be iterative and contain risk monitoring and updating mechanisms.

Flood warning

The Environment Agency (EA) is responsible for the operation and maintenance of vital flood defences and for issuing flood warning messages. It monitors water levels and flows, current meteorological conditions and likely rainfall and, from this information, assesses the likelihood of potential flooding.

Information on the flood condition of rivers, status of warnings and predicted levels is available from the GOV.UK website and from ‘Floodline' – the environmental Agency's 24-hour ‘dial and listen' recorded information service for England and Wales. Regular information is also broadcast on local radio and TV.

Flood warnings will be issued as early as possible and within the published timescales, where we are able to provide a service for rivers and the sea.

Flood warnings – on the GOV.UK website

Risk assessments

The Civil Contingencies Act places a risk assessment duty on all category 1 responders to assess risk as often as is necessary. This is to ensure they can maintain and update their emergency plans and business continuity.

Local resilience forums coordinate this primarily and also develop the Community Risk Register (CRR). This provides an agreed position on the risks affecting a local area and on the planning and resourcing priorities required to prepare for those risks.

With specific regard to flood risk, many local authorities will have developed a Strategic Flood Risk Assessment (SFRA) in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework. An SFRA provides the essential information on flood risk and allows the local planning authority to understand the risk across its area. The Government's planning guidance on flood risk provides further information on SFRAs.

Preliminary flood risk assessments (PFRAs) have been produced by Lead Local Flood Authorities (LLFAs) in England and provide a summary of significant historic floods, information on future flood risks and information on whether a LLFA is within a flood risk area.

Surface Water Management Plans developed by some LLFAs will look at existing problems and inform planning decisions for new development. They are generally most appropriate for use in urban environments or in specific neighbourhoods. They also provide evidence to be used within local flood risk management strategies.

These assessments and plans should be used by LLFAs to help develop their local flood risk management strategies. A local flood risk management strategy must be put in place to provide communities with information on how local flood risk is being managed in their area.

Information from these flood risk assessments, plans and strategies should be useful for the preparation and execution of a flood emergency plan as it indicates areas that may be at risk from flooding. This may also include vulnerable building and infrastructure.

Reservoirs

The Reservoirs Act 1975 has been amended by the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. The Environment Agency, as the enforcement authority for the Reservoirs Act 1975, will be responsible for deciding which large raised reservoirs are designated as ‘high risk'. This will be applied to those reservoirs designed to hold or capable of holding more than 25,000m3 of water above natural ground level.

‘High risk' reservoirs are those large raised reservoirs where the Environment Agency thinks that human life could be endangered if there was an uncontrolled release of water from the reservoir. Owners of ‘high risk' reservoirs will need to comply with all the requirements of the act. Owners of large raised reservoirs that are not designated as ‘high risk' will still need to register, but will generally not need to comply with the inspection and supervision requirements of the Act. 

For more information on reservoir designation visit GOV.UK.

Further information

Flood pages – on the GOV.UK website

More about flood risk assessments

Civil Contingencies Act (2004) on the legislation.gov.uk website.