dataset · England
Flood Risk Areas
This metadata record is for Approval for Access product AfA256. Flood Risk Areas identify locations where there is believed to be significant flood risk. The EU Floods Directive refers to Flood Risk Areas as 'Areas of Potentially Significant Flood Risk' (APSFR). Flood Risk Areas have been defined by the Environment Agency (main rivers and the sea) and Lead Local Flood Authorities (surface water). Other sources of flooding are not covered. This dataset includes Flood Risk Areas defined for both C
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Licence: ["There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.", "There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the
Evidence quality: 50.2
Listed in data.gov.uk public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).
Metadata checked: 2026-10-14T13:20:00.000Z
What's in it
- Data offered docs-verified
- Flood Risk Areas (Areas of Potentially Significant Flood Risk, APSFR) vector dataset · Flood Risk Areas for Cycle 1 (2011) and Cycle 2 (2018) · Supporting guidance on significance criteria (PDF)
- Coverage llm-inferred
- England per ENTRY regions; docs give extent 49.943° to 55.816° N, -6.236° to 2.072° E (bounding box may extend beyond England) · Cycle 1 (December 2011) and Cycle 2 (December 2018)
- Update frequency docs-verified
- as needed (no fixed schedule stated)
- Formats docs-verified
- SHP (ZIP) · GPKG (ZIP) · GeoJSON (ZIP) · File Geodatabase GDB (ZIP) · PDF (guidance) · TXT (Data Version)
- Access docs-verified
- Free and open; no public access constraints; use subject to the Open Government Licence
Useful for
- Use cases llm-inferred
- Broad-scale screening of a site or catchment against EU Floods Directive significant flood risk areas in an FRA scoping stage · GIS overlay of development boundaries with APSFR extents to flag where detailed flood modelling is needed · Planning-level context for drainage strategy scoping, with surface water and main river/sea sources noted
- Audience llm-inferred
- flood consultants · GIS analysts · planners · drainage engineers · hydrologists
Limitations
- Constraints docs-verified
- Designed for broad planning purposes only; not appropriate for other types of flood mapping or localised flood risk · Covers main rivers and the sea (Environment Agency) and surface water (Lead Local Flood Authorities) only; other flooding sources are not covered · Metadata text calls this an 'Approval for Access product AfA256' while access constraints state none; confirm before relying on it · Update frequency is as needed, so currency depends on publication dates · Latest reference date for the dataset is December 2018 (Cycle 2)
Evidence
- https://environment.data.gov.uk/api/file/download?fileDataSetId=ab4aae63-dc0a-4234-b7a3-367a8c566961&fileName=Data Version.txt
- https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/42c31542-228d-439b-8dbe-e72135dae71c/flood-risk-areas
Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.