Flooding Biennial Reports

The Flood Prevention and Land Drainage (Scotland) Act 1997 came into force on 26 May 1997 and amended the Flood Prevention (Scotland) Act 1961 by placing statutory duties on local authorities to maintain watercourses within their area.

The main sections of the Flood Prevention and Land Drainage (Scotland) Act 1997 can be summarised as follows:

• Requires the local authority to assess all watercourses, from time to time, to ascertain whether or not they are likely to cause flooding of non-agricultural land
• Requires the local authority to carry out works to reduce the likelihood of flooding of non-­agricultural land
• The Act does not place any duty to undertake capital works
• Requires local authorities to liaise with adjacent authorities
• Requires local authorities to prepare and publish biennial reports

The full flood prevention biennial reports since 1999 are available to download in the 'Related Downloads' section of this page.