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
Advises how to take account of and address the risks associated with flooding and coastal change in the planning process.
Check if you need to apply for an environmental permit, formerly known as a flood defence consent, and get the forms you need.
When you may need an environmental permit or licence for activities that could pollute, increase flood risk, affect land drainage or affect water resources. Check the rules and get advice before you start operating.
When and how local planning authorities, developers and their agents should use climate change allowances in flood risk assessments.
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.
How to carry out a flood risk assessment so that you can complete your planning application
How the Thames Barrier works, and when it is scheduled to close.
How to change details of your environmental permit, transfer it to somebody else or cancel it.
Find out if you need to follow standing advice when completing a flood risk assessment and what to do.
Guidance and resources to help apply the 2025 flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) funding policy for new projects opportunities.
What flood alerts and flood warnings mean and what you should do when they're issued.
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.
Explains how the 2025 flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) funding policy will work in practice for new project opportunities.
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.
Groundwater flooding, how it might affect you and what to do.
What you need to know about the Environment Agency’s new national risk information for flooding and coastal erosion.
What the reservoir flood maps show, how they were created and how to use them for your assessments.
Find the 2022 update to the river basin management plans which describe the challenges that threaten the water environment and how these challenges can be managed.
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 and requires JavaScript).