Planning and constraints
Flood zone and surface water risk
The Environment Agency's two flood layers: fluvial and tidal flood zones (1 low, 2 medium, 3 high) and the Risk of Flooding from Surface Water, both returned per property.
Also called: flood risk, flood zone 3, surface water flooding, RoFSW.
Definition
Flood zone and surface water risk, as the data uses it
Flood zones describe the probability of flooding from rivers and the sea, ignoring defences: zone 1 is a less than 0.1% annual chance, zone 2 between 0.1% and 1% (0.5% tidal), zone 3 above that. Surface water risk is a separate assessment of flooding from rainfall that cannot drain away, banded very low to high, and it is the flooding most urban properties actually face.
MarketCode returns the surface water band for a property and the flood zone within the planning designations check and the site dossier, from the Environment Agency's own layers. A lender's exclusion criterion and a developer's sequential test both start here.
Tools
Tools that return it
Flood risk for a property
property_flood_risk()Environment Agency surface-water flood risk for a property.
Planning designations at a location
planning_designations()Every planning designation affecting a location, in one call: conservation
Site appraisal dossier
site_appraisal()Everything known about ONE site, assembled and judged — the site dossier.
See also
Related terms
- Conservation area: An area a local planning authority has designated for its special architectural or historic character, where demolition and many external changes need consent.
- Green belt: Land around cities designated to prevent urban sprawl, where new building is inappropriate except in defined circumstances; one of the designations MarketCode checks live.
FAQ
Questions about flood zone and surface water risk
What does Flood zone and surface water risk mean?
+
The Environment Agency's two flood layers: fluvial and tidal flood zones (1 low, 2 medium, 3 high) and the Risk of Flooding from Surface Water, both returned per property.
Which MarketCode tools return flood zone and surface water risk?
+
Flood risk for a property, Planning designations at a location, Site appraisal dossier. Each runs as an MCP tool in Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and Cursor and as a REST endpoint with an API key, at the same price.
Is flood zone 3 the same thing?
+
Yes. flood risk, flood zone 3, surface water flooding are other names for what this entry defines; MarketCode uses "Flood zone and surface water risk" in its tool descriptions and responses.
See it on a real address.
Thirty minutes, your property or area, every figure sourced.