Blog

Home / Flood Risk  / What is a flood risk assessment?

What is a flood risk assessment?

A flood risk assessment analyses the likelihood of a location to be affected by uncontrolled water known as flooding. This can include flooding from rivers, the sea, flash-flooding from heavy rainfall, groundwater or sewer overflows. 

Flood Risk Assessments are undertaken when someone is: 

  • Looking to buy a house 
  • Looking to build and get planning permission 
  • Looking to reduce flood risk at a property or business 

As flood severity is expected to increase in the future largely due to climate change it is increasingly important to undertake a flood risk assessment which investigates all sources of flooding for your property or land.  Whether you are looking to buy a new home, seek planning permission for your dream house or a commercial development, or looking to reduce flood risk at your home or business, we can provide a flood risk assessment to suit your needs.  

Understanding what has happened in the past can often lead to much better flood resilience in the future. The flood history of a property may have been recorded in various ways through local records or council databases. We use the latest Environment Agency Flood History records, as well as our own UK wide local scale Flood History Database. This is combined with the experience and analytical knowledge of our team of qualified flood consultants who will consider multiple flood modelling data sources and flood mapping.  

This is used together with additional property-specific information to provide an enhanced analysis where a plausible flood risk has been shown to exist. Important property attributes are considered, including the review of local authority data, site imagery and topography and a search of local drainage problems.  

The culmination of these efforts is an unrivalled level of evaluation and insight that will give you the best indication of whether your property has previously experienced any flooding from Rivers, Sea, Surface Water flash flooding, Reservoirs or Groundwater. 

Find out more about flood risk assessment service here.