Floodline terms and conditions
- Registration
- Your account details
- Your online account
- How you receive flooding information
- Call charges
- Flooding messages from Floodline
- Delivery of messages
- Disclaimer
- Protecting your information
- Leaving Floodline
- Cyber security
- Changes to these terms and conditions
- Your statutory rights
- Enforcement of these terms and conditions
- Governing law
- Further information
Floodline, in Scotland, is operated by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). Floodline provides live flooding information and advice to help you prepare for and respond to flooding 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
By signing up to Floodline, you agree to the following terms and conditions.
Please read the terms and conditions carefully.
In these terms and conditions, “we”, “our” and “us” means SEPA.
Registration
You can register for Floodline using the following methods:
- Online at SEPA’s self-service portal
- By calling Floodline on 0345 988 1188
We will ask you to provide the following information:
- Name
- Address including postcode
- Telephone number(s) (landline and / or mobile)
- Email address(es)
Your account details
You must keep your account details up to date.
If you provide a landline number, please make sure other people at that the address know they may receive Floodline calls.
If you register contact details that are not your own, you must have permission from the owner beforehand.
If you need to update your account but have not provided an email address, please call Floodline.
We will periodically remind you to check your account details. We will contact you by:
- Email, or
- SMS, phone (including voicemail), or letter if no email is provided.
If we cannot deliver messages to your contact details and cannot reach you, we may remove you from Floodline.
Your online account
If you provide an email address during registration, we will create an online account for you.
We will use this email address to send:
- Flood alerts and warnings (if selected)
- Service messages, such as reminders to check your details.
You can use your account to:
- Update your name, contact details and password
- Change how you receive flood alerts and / or warnings
- Add or remove locations
- Leave (deregister) from Floodline.
How you receive flooding information
You can choose to receive flood alerts and / or warnings by phone, text and/or email.
If you choose phone contact, check with your telephone provider that inbound call or message blocking is not enabled on your phone, as this may prevent phone calls/ message delivery
We will send messages to all your registered contact methods at the same time.
Call charges
Calls to Floodline cost the same as calls to standard UK landline numbers (01 and 02) and are usually included in call packages.
Charges may vary depending on your provider.
Flooding messages from Floodline
After registering for Floodline, you can choose to receive:
- Regional flood alerts
- Local flood warnings (including severe flood warnings)
Regional flood alerts (Flooding is possible – Be prepared)
Regional flood alerts are issued when flooding is possible across a wider geographical area. They are designed to give you early notice to prepare for flooding. Flood alerts consider flooding from surface water, rivers and the sea and are usually issued between 08:00–18:00.
Flood alerts may be issued outwith these hours in exceptional circumstances.
How you will be contacted
When a flood alert is issued for your area, you will receive notifications by your chosen contact channel (phone call, text message or email).
Important change to ‘No Longer in Force’ message
From July 2026, flood alert ‘No Longer in Force' (NLIF) messages are no longer sent by phone call or text message.
Instead, when a flood alert is removed, this information will be:
- Published on the SEPA website, and
- Available by calling Floodline on 0345 988 1188
Local flood warnings (Flooding is expected - Take action)
Flood warnings are issued when flooding is expected in a specific area. They are only available in areas where we can forecast flooding from certain rivers or coastlines and may be issued at any time.
By registering for local flood warnings, you will receive both:
- Flood warnings and
- Severe flood warnings.
Severe flood warnings (Severe flooding – Danger to life)
Severe flood warnings will only be issued in exceptional circumstances when flooding is likely to:
- Threaten life,
- Evacuation is required.
How you will be contacted
When a flood warning or severe flood warning is issued for your area, you will receive notifications by your chosen contact channel (phone call, text message or email).
Delivery of messages
We cannot accept responsibility for
- Loss or damage caused by flooding
- Decisions based on Floodline messages
- Failure to issue or receive messages.
We cannot guarantee message delivery. This may be affected by:
- Phone signal or device availability
- Call or message blocking
- Email filtering or spam settings
- Internet or network issues
Disclaimer
Whilst all reasonable effort is made to ensure information provided via Floodline is up to date, we do not provide any guarantees or warranties that the information will be current, accurate and complete.
We are not liable for any loss or damage that may come from using Floodline, including any direct, indirect or consequential loss.
Ultimate responsibility lies with you to act upon any information provided through Floodline. We will not be responsible if such information is misinterpreted and / or misused by you.
We cannot guarantee that Floodline will be available at all times and will not be liable for any system downtime or other associated issues.
Protecting your information
We take data protection seriously,
For details on how we use your information please read:
- SEPA privacy policy
- The Floodline privacy notice at Registering for Floodline
Please ensure you have read these.
By using Floodline, you agree to follow data protection laws, including the Data Protection Act 2018.
You have the right to:
- Request access to your personal data
- Ask for corrections
In an emergency, we may share your details with the emergency services.
SEPA is subject to the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
Leaving Floodline
You can deregister from Floodline at any time:
- By using your online account
- By calling Floodline on 0345 988 1188
When you deregister from Floodline, we will stop sending messages and your Floodline account will be closed.
Cyber security
You must not use Floodline in a way that could harm systems or does not expose you or us to the risk of viruses, malicious computer code or other forms of interference.
We are not responsible for any loss, disruption or damage to your device when using Floodline.
Changes to these terms and conditions
These terms and conditions may have changed since you registered for Floodline.
We have the right, at our sole discretion and at any time, to change or modify the Floodline flood information service and these terms and conditions. Such changes shall be effective immediately.
Your continued use of Floodline after any changes shall constitute your acceptance of any changes to the Floodline service and any revised terms and conditions.
Your statutory rights
Nothing within these terms and conditions interferes with your statutory rights or obligations.
Enforcement of these terms and conditions
We might decide not to exercise or enforce any right available to us under these terms and conditions. We can always decide to exercise or enforce that right at a later date. Doing this won’t mean we automatically waive the right on any other occasion.
If any of these terms and conditions are held to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal for any reason, the remaining terms and conditions will still apply.
Governing law
These terms and conditions are governed by Scots law.
In the event of any dispute which relates to these terms and conditions, or your use of Floodline, you agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Scottish Courts.
Further information
If you have any queries regarding the service, please call Floodline. Alternatively, you can complete the contact form on our website.
If you are a user of British Sign Language (BSL), the Contact Scotland BSL service gives you access to an online interpreter, enabling you to communicate with us using sign language. For more information see Contact Scotland BSL.
If you would like this information in an accessible format, such as large print, audio recording or braille, please contact SEPA by emailing equalities@sepa.org.uk.
Last updated July 2026