How to use it

Before you use the flood map, please note that it has been developed to give an indication of whether a general area, not individual properties, may be affected by flooding.

1. Once you have clicked on ‘view the flood map’ some important information about the map will appear. You should read all the important information before clicking on the ‘View Map’ button to proceed.
   
   
2. When the flood map displays you will see the whole of Scotland.  You can search the map by typing either a place name, or a postcode, into the ‘Address Search’ section on the left hand side of the screen, and clicking on the ‘go’ button. This will then show you the flood risk information for the area chosen.
   
   
3. Areas that may be affected by flooding from rivers are shown in blue and areas with that may flood from the sea are shown in green. Areas affected by both are shown as turquoise.
   
   
4. You can then zoom in and out using the zoom bar at the bottom of the page, and pan around the flood map by clicking on the map and dragging, or by using the navigation arrows at the top left hand corner of the map. You can minimise the navigation arrows and the context map by clicking on the small arrows in the corner of these features.
   
   
5. The flood map shows those areas that may be affected by flooding from either rivers or the sea. The flood map does not explicitly take into account any flood defences in place, now or in the future. If you would like to see if there are any flood defences in the area you have selected, tick the ‘flood defences’ check box in the ‘Show Me’ section on the right hand side of the page. To return to the flood map click on the ‘flood map’ check box in the ‘Show Me’ section. For more information about either the flood map or flood defence information, click on the information buttons to the right hand side of the ‘Show Me’ section.

(Please note that you can’t view the flood map or the flood defence information if you are zoomed out too far and you can’t view both types of information together.)

What the map shows

The flood map has been developed to show areas that may be affected by flooding from either rivers or the sea. The scale of a flood can depend on a variety of things including:

• the amount of rain and how quickly it has fallen
  
  
• the conditions in the area around the river, known as the catchment, such as how hilly or vegetated an area is and how dry or wet the ground is, can affect how much rain soaks into the ground and how much water runs directly into the river
  
  
• if there is a particularly high tide
  
  
• if there is a tidal surge or waves caused by strong winds and currents

The flood map shows an estimate of the areas of Scotland with a 0.5% or greater probability of being flooded in any given year, or put another way the areas estimated to have a 1 in 200 or greater chance of being flooded in any given year.