Current status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 27 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will confirm the total number of existing (a) residential, (b) commercial and (c) industrial properties that are considered at risk of flooding, based on SEPA's use of the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 emissions scenario, broken down by local authority area.
SEPA recently completed an update to their National Flood Risk Assessment. This was summarised in their December 2025 National Flood Risk Assessment 2025 report.
The report includes data on the number of properties at risk in a medium risk current day scenario* and the number of properties at risk in 2100 under a medium risk climate change scenario**. These are broken down by local authority and residential/non residential properties in Table B, rather than split by property type. Local authority distribution of flood risk in the appendix of the report. A subset of relevant data from that table is replicated below.
SEPA plan to publish more detailed data in March 2026.
Local Authority | Total Properties at Risk | Residential | Non-Residential | % of Total Properties at Risk | Properties at Risk by 2100 |
Aberdeen City | 20400 | 18200 | 2200 | 15 | 31400 |
Aberdeenshire | 19800 | 13000 | 6800 | 11 | 29100 |
Angus | 6600 | 4300 | 2300 | 9 | 11500 |
Argyll & Bute | 12200 | 8200 | 4000 | 18 | 17700 |
City of Edinburgh | 39100 | 36500 | 2600 | 14 | 64500 |
Clackmannanshire | 5100 | 4500 | 600 | 18 | 7500 |
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar | 1700 | 1300 | 500 | 9 | 3100 |
Dumfries & Galloway | 19500 | 11600 | 7900 | 17 | 27200 |
Dundee City | 8600 | 7400 | 1300 | 10 | 13900 |
East Ayrshire | 8300 | 6400 | 1900 | 12 | 12500 |
East Dunbartonshire | 5700 | 5000 | 700 | 11 | 8800 |
East Lothian | 7800 | 6200 | 1600 | 12 | 12400 |
East Renfrewshire | 4600 | 4200 | 400 | 10 | 6700 |
Falkirk | 10000 | 7800 | 2200 | 12 | 18900 |
Fife | 18700 | 14800 | 3900 | 9 | 29500 |
Glasgow City | 52900 | 49100 | 3800 | 15 | 82000 |
Highland | 20600 | 13600 | 7100 | 12 | 37000 |
Inverclyde | 6300 | 5500 | 800 | 15 | 10200 |
Midlothian | 4300 | 3600 | 700 | 9 | 7200 |
Moray | 7900 | 4800 | 3200 | 13 | 13600 |
North Ayrshire | 8700 | 7100 | 1600 | 10 | 14700 |
North Lanarkshire | 18900 | 16500 | 2300 | 11 | 30100 |
Orkney | 2200 | 1500 | 800 | 13 | 3500 |
Perth & Kinross | 12700 | 8400 | 4300 | 13 | 20800 |
Renfrewshire | 11600 | 10400 | 1200 | 12 | 19100 |
Scottish Borders | 14700 | 9500 | 5200 | 17 | 20200 |
Shetland | 1100 | 600 | 500 | 7 | 1700 |
South Ayrshire | 7000 | 5200 | 1900 | 10 | 12300 |
South Lanarkshire | 18600 | 15400 | 3200 | 10 | 29100 |
Stirling | 7500 | 5600 | 1900 | 14 | 12900 |
West Dunbartonshire | 8400 | 7300 | 1100 | 17 | 11900 |
West Lothian | 7800 | 6500 | 1300 | 8 | 13400 |
* defined as areas with more than 0.5% chance of flooding each year
** The climate change scenario is based on SEPA's future flood maps which use a variety of climate change scenarios including the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 emissions scenario (UKCP18) and scenarios from UKCP09. More details about SEPA's future flood maps and the scenarios used can be found in National Flood Risk Assessment 2025 and future-flood-maps-summary_v4.pdf.