The Environment Agency’s National Flood Hydrology team are the technical authority for operational flood hydrology in England. We maintain national guidance for practitioners in flood hydrology, undertake our statutory role as a regulator in reviewing hydrology for land use planning, and commission research and development projects that bring the latest science into operational use. We work closely with the Environment Agency’s Flood Hydrology Improvements Team, who have previously featured in this magazine and are delivering part of the Flood Hydrology Roadmap. As a team our guiding principles are to provide technical excellence, enable continuous improvement and collaborate across the industry.
We have varied backgrounds and a wealth of experience, which enables us to work effectively as a team with expertise in hydrometry, data analysis, application and research of hydrological methods, flood and water resources hydrology, and geomorphology.
DIVE RIGHT IN
Sign up to our newsletter
We engage with regulators from the devolved nations, as well as organisations who develop and maintain the hydrometric data sets and software used by flood-risk practitioners across the UK. These relationships are vital to ensure we can implement consistent ways of working and ensure we have appropriate guidance to support the roll out of updated methods, such as the Flood Estimation Handbook 25 (FEH25), which landed in Autumn 2025.
Our team has established a practitioner network, accessible to all working in the hydrological community, to enable engagement with a wide audience. We share news and updates via our periodic newsletter and have created an externally available Sharepoint site to house calculation tools and guidance on hydrological methods. You can join our mailing list and gain access to our tools and guidance using this link.
In 2025 we saw the greatest change to the Flood Estimation Handbook method for over 10 years, with updated catchment descriptors and a change to the method applied in the WINFAP software. Our involvement in informing practitioners utilised our established collaborative working relationships with Wallingford HydroSolutions, the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and with the British Hydrological Society to host a series of webinars to share the details behind the updates. These sessions enabled engagement with practitioners and researchers to ensure understanding of the changes in the new FEH25 method and the implications for those undertaking flood hydrology calculations.
Contact via FloodHydrology@environment‑agency.gov.uk for support or queries.
Main image: Team photo from left to right (Angela Barber, Donna Wilson, Trev Bond, Ann Kretzschmar, Katie Muchan, Clare Waller)