Geological Indicators of Flooding Great Britain

The BGS Geological Indicators of Flooding (GIF) dataset is a digital map based on the BGS Digital Geological Map of Great Britain at the 1:50,000 scale (DiGMapGB-50, BGS, 2009). Current coverage includes England, Wales and Scotland. It characterises Superficial Deposits on DiGMapGB-50 in terms of their likely susceptibility to flooding, either from coastal inundation or fluvial (inland) water flow. These Superficial Deposits are considered 'recent' in geological terms, most having been formed within the last few tens of thousands of years. Typically they have been laid down by processes of erosion and deposition and they have produced subtle topographical features, resulting in low-lying landforms we call floodplains. The mapping of these landforms, in conjunction with characterisation of deposits that underlie them allows us to determine the extent of the coastal and inland flooding that created them.