DEFRA flood risk maps

Fascinating and useful ... thanks Fran. :o)

Thanks Fran, we live on a hill but the major roads out of the village were all under water earlier in tthe week, I relied on the enviroment agency site which was very good and renewed every 15. Minutes, so I could keep up with the rise and fall of the river

Same here, we live on a hill but one of our ways out was 3' under water!
Thanks Fran!

I think it says that it only covers sea and rivers, not lakes or reservoirs. And it probably only covers "average" risk - extra-wet weather would of course add to local risk. But one can check and recheck, they must update it on a regular basis.

smiles, I'm a tad paranoid about flooding: I can *just* remember the Thames Flood of 1953 (dad giving me a piggyback down the street, which was almost knee-deep in water; I must have been about a yrear old); I've read up on it since: there's a fascinating book called London's Drowning, by Antony Milne.

I'm amazed the Thames hasn't flooded.......it's source comes from Gloucestershire!

it has, many times - but I assume you mean "this time round". There are probably more flood defences on the Thames than in most other areas put together - never mind the people, got to protect Parliament and the City financial centres! (what genuis put a major financial centre on the Isle of Dogs, surrounded by river on three sides and guaranteed to be one of the first places to flood?)

*s* this is why, although I'm looking to move, I wouldn't look at anything near the sea or a river - on a good day you're by the water, on a bad day you're in it.

On the news as I write this: govt going to spend £150 million on flood defences over next three years - which is going to be a great comfort to people flooded now! Why are they allowed to build whole new towns on known flood plains without building defences to go with it??

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20528352

The DEFRA map would cover lakes and reservoirs although they are not so likely to flood. The one thing that it cannot predict is surface water flooding ie the runoff from roads and other hard surfaces in cases of extreme rainfall.
If you live in Scotland the equavalent flood map site is http://www.sepa.org.uk/flooding/flood_extent_maps.aspx

great addition, Bulb, and interesting in itself!

I've since found out that the DEFRA site offers so many choices other than river/sea flooding, but that was the default setting, so I suppose that's what people want to know about most, as the most likely to happen.

I have to have another map open as well - Bing, mostly, with the "here it is" indicator, they try to match the DEFRA map to it, try to find something I can recovnise on both maps, then home in on the DEFRA one - lol in the case of "river flooding" the exact location was often concealed under a wash of blue!