Terms and conditions

Floodline, in Scotland, is operated by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). It provides live flooding information and advice on how to prepare for or cope with the impacts of flooding 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Signing up to Floodline indicates your acceptance of the following terms and conditions.

Your account details

It’s important to keep your account details up to date and make others at any registered address aware that they may receive messages from Floodline.
If you have registered any contact numbers that are not your own, you must obtain each owner’s permission in advance.
Please check with your telephone provider that you don’t have any inbound call barring on your phone, as this may prevent the messages from being delivered.
Your priority 1 contact number will be the primary number we use to contact you. If you don’t answer, Floodline will try to deliver the message to the other numbers you provided to us, in order of priority. We will try each number a maximum of 3 times. An answer phone service may be treated as a delivered message. If you require all numbers to be tried simultaneously, please contact Floodline on 0345 988 1188.
Your confirmation letter and welcome pack will be sent to your main contact address; you won’t receive a letter and pack at each address you have signed up for.
Within the first 2 years of registration and then annually, you will receive a reminder (via email or letter) prompting you to check your details.
If you have not provided an email address you will need to contact Floodline on 0345 988 1188 to make any changes to your account.

Your online account

If you have provided an email address during registration, we will use this to create an online account and to send you flooding information to help you be prepared and use Floodline to its full potential.
You can change your name, email address, password, telephone numbers, channel for receiving messages and deregister from Floodline through your online account.
If you don’t have access to an online account, need to change your property address or if your account is registered for more than one location, please phone Floodline on 0345 988 1188.

Call charges

The cost of calling Floodline varies depending on your service provider, your call package and whether a landline or mobile is used.

Flooding messages from Floodline

Flood Alerts (Flooding is possible – Be prepared)

Flood Alerts are an early indication of potential flooding from coasts, rivers or surface water. They cover large regions (usually council areas) and are usually issued between 08:00–18:00; however, they may be issued out with these hours in exceptional circumstances.

If your registered property is not within a Flood Warning Area, you will be signed up for Flood Alerts only.

Flood Warnings (Flooding is expected – Take action)

Flood Warnings are issued when flooding is expected for a defined local area. They will be issued at any time of the day or night.

By registering for Flood Warnings, you will receive both Flood Warnings and Severe Flood Warnings. Flood Warnings and Severe Flood Warnings are only issued for areas where we have river and coastal monitoring and the capacity to forecast local conditions.

Severe Flood Warnings (Severe flooding – Danger to life)

Severe Flood Warnings will only be issued in exceptional circumstances where the impacts of flooding threaten life or where evacuation is required.

If it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency, we will share personal information with the relevant emergency service.

Delivery of messages

SEPA cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage caused by flooding; by issuing, or failing to issue, Flood Alerts and Flood Warnings; or by our customers not accessing a Flood Alert or Flood Warning in time to take action.

SEPA is not responsible for the delivery of messages to your handset as other factors, such as signal reception, your phone being switched off, call barring or technical difficulties with your provider, may affect your ability to receive messages.

Protecting your information

For information on how SEPA handles personal information, please read our privacy notices.

There is a specific privacy notice for Floodline which explains how we collect and use personal information for the purposes of providing our flood warning service. Please ensure you have read this.

SEPA may share your information with the emergency services and local authorities to help them respond to flooding

Deregister from Floodline

You can stop receiving flooding messages at any time.

You can do this online or by calling Floodline on 0345 988 1188.

We may write to the current occupier of the property address in the future. This is to ensure that if you move away the new occupiers have the opportunity to sign up to Floodline.

If you have any queries regarding the service please contact Floodline by email or call Floodline on 0345 988 1188.

Last updated June 2018