Landscape risk contributions

Which parts of the landscape are most important when considering environmental risks such as flooding, soil erosion and pollution of watercourses?

Areas contributing to environmental risks are often remote from the places where the effects become manifest. Upstream catchment areas, floodplains and/or watercourses will all contribute to the risk of downstream flooding.

The map layers estimate a relative contribution of the landscape to the following environmental risks:

• Surface and river flooding of built-up areas.
• Soil erosion by water (‘topological’ risk without consideration of landcover).
• Soil erosion by water including landcover effect.
• Soil/sediment reaching the watercourse network.
• Soil/sediment reaching affecting quality of drinking, aquaculture and bathing waters.

The higher the contribution value the greater the likelihood and/or magnitude of the risk from that location. For example the greater the contribution to downstream flood peaks or of soil/sediment from the cell reaching the watercourse network.

The maps summarise highly complex mechanisms of risk generation and flow. Please only consider as indicative of likely risk.

Many factors affecting the generation and flow of risk are not accounted for, most notably land management techniques, watercourse characteristics, sub-surface drainage and flood defence infrastructure.

Map resolution: 100x100 metre grid cells.