Reservoir flood maps go online

Public Service (UK): Councils and emergency services and are to be better prepared for reservoir flood risks after the Environment Agency published online maps highlighting areas potentially at risk from flooding. The maps show the worst case scenario of how far flood water could spread from a reservoir, giving emergency services and councils information to plan ahead to protect the public.

Created using dam breach and flood modelling techniques the maps cover reservoirs in England and Wales and have been published on the Environment Agency website. "While the risk of a reservoir failure is extremely low the safety of the public must remain our top priority and where there is even a small risk we need to make sure that we are prepared," said environment minister Richard Benyon.

"These reservoir flood maps will help ensure that authorities and emergency services know what to do to reduce the possibility of water escaping from a reservoir and how to reduce damage and danger if a reservoir does fail."

Welsh minister for environment sustainability and housing, Jane Davidson said: "Making the outline maps accessible on the Environment Agency's web pages is important, not only to help raise the public's awareness of wider flood risk information but also to spell out what actions they should take in the unlikely event of a reservoir emergency."…

A 2007 flood in Oxford, shot by John Barker, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license