Floods Directive

DIRECTIVE 2007/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on the assessment and management of flood risks is commonly known as the ‘Floods Directive’.

The Floods Directive requires Member States to engage their government departments, agencies and other bodies to draw up a Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment. This assessment is to consider impacts on human health and life, the environment, cultural heritage and economic activity, with a legislative completion date of December 2011. The information in this assessment will be used to identify the areas at significant risk which will then be modelled in order to produce flood hazard and risk maps. These maps are to be in place by December 2013 and will include detail on the flood extent, depth and level for three risk scenarios (high, medium and low probability).

Flood Risk Management Plans can then be produced to indicate to policy makers, developers, and the public the nature of the risk and the measures proposed to manage these risks. The management plans are to focus on prevention, protection and preparedness. The Flood Risk Management Plans are to be complete by December 2015 and in order to ensure community buy-in they will require input from interested parties during their development.

Flood risk management plans shall take into account the relevant environmental objectives of Article 4 of Directive 2000/60/EC, commonly known as the 'Water Framework Directive'.

The Floods Directive was transposed into Northern Ireland regulation in November 2009 and is called, “The Water Environment (Floods Directive) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2009”.