We use some essential cookies to make this website work.
We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services.
We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.
You have accepted additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.
You have rejected additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.
Departments, agencies and public bodies
News stories, speeches, letters and notices
Detailed guidance, regulations and rules
Reports, analysis and official statistics
Consultations and strategy
Data, Freedom of Information releases and corporate reports
Check if you need to apply for an environmental permit, formerly known as a flood defence consent, and get the forms you need.
What you need to know about the Environment Agency’s new national risk information for flooding and coastal erosion.
Find out when you need to do a flood risk assessment as part of your planning application, how to complete one and how it is processed.
Permits for installations, medium combustion plant, specified generator, waste or mining waste operations, water discharge or groundwater activities, or work on or near a main river or sea defence.
How to carry out a flood risk assessment so that you can complete your planning application
When and how local planning authorities, developers and their agents should use climate change allowances in flood risk assessments.
What flood alerts and flood warnings mean and what you should do when they're issued.
Find out if you need to follow standing advice when completing a flood risk assessment and what to do.
How to change details of your environmental permit, transfer it to somebody else or cancel it.
How the Thames Barrier works, and when it is scheduled to close.
How to use the maps to find out if you're at risk of flooding from surface water.
When to use standing advice on site-specific flood risk assessments, and when to consult the Environment Agency.
Find out about flood risk activity exemptions, which used to need flood defence consent, and how to register them.
Check how coastal flood and erosion risks will be managed in your area.
The types of work on or near a main river or sea defence that don't need an environmental permit so are excluded from the regulations.
Checklists to help you prepare for flooding.
Guidance and information on flood risk management and surface water management.
Groundwater flooding, how it might affect you and what to do.
When to use hydrological and hydraulic modelling as part of a flood risk assessment for a planning application, and the expected standards.
Increase flood resilience with Natural Flood Management
Don’t include personal or financial information like your National Insurance number or credit card details.
To help us improve GOV.UK, we’d like to know more about your visit today. Please fill in this survey (opens in a new tab).