Environment Agency real-time flood-monitoring API

1. API reference: near real time flood warnings, flood areas, levels and flows; monitored usually every 15 minutes, transferred typically once or twice per day, more in heightened flood risk; OGL with no registration and attribution statement; no service-level guarantee, not for safety-critical use; one ?latest call every 15 minutes; caching and redirects; endpoints and filters; 500 default / 10,000 hard limit for readings, no hard limit for flood areas; readings for up to four weeks; warnings updated every 15 minutes and kept at severity 4 for about 24 hours; daily CSV archives environment.data.gov.uk
2. About 1,000 telemetered tipping-bucket rain gauges, 15-minute totals, typically transferred once or twice per day; stations unnamed and located to a 100 m grid; rainfall attribution statement; reading URIs valid for 28 days environment.data.gov.uk
3. UK National Tide Gauge Network, 44 locations around the UK coast, 15-minute mean sea level, latest reading typically lags 15 to 30 minutes, times in UTC; type=TideGauge filter environment.data.gov.uk
4. Live keyless GET 2026-10-26 (05:00 UTC 27 Oct): 5,376 latest values, median 31 minutes old, 84% under an hour; meta version 0.9, 'Status: Beta service', OGL v3 licence; Cache-Control max-age=300 environment.data.gov.uk
5. Live GET 2026-10-26: 5,539 stations; measure counts by parameter (level, rainfall, flow, wind, temperature) environment.data.gov.uk
6. Live GET 2026-10-26: stations near a point in London environment.data.gov.uk
7. Live GET 2026-10-26: tide gauge stations include Lerwick, Ullapool, Aberdeen, Portrush, Bangor (NI), Holyhead, Milford Haven, Port Erin and Jersey environment.data.gov.uk
8. Live GET 2026-10-26: Lerwick tide gauge reading at 04:15 UTC 27 Oct environment.data.gov.uk
9. Live GET 2026-10-26: 111 flood items (43 flood alerts, 13 flood warnings, 55 no longer in force) with severity and message environment.data.gov.uk
10. Defra Data Services Platform terms: lawful use; content and data under the OGL unless stated; logos and trademarks exempt; feeds offered for other websites and applications environment.data.gov.uk
11. OGL v3.0: worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to copy, adapt and exploit commercially and non-commercially, with attribution www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
12. No Environment Agency MCP server in the official registry; third-party uk-flood-monitoring and floodwise servers listed registry.modelcontextprotocol.io

About. The Environment Agency's beta real-time API serves water level and flow from about 5,500 monitoring stations in England, about 1,000 rain gauges, the UK National Tide Gauge Network, and current flood alerts and warnings for England, all keyless under the Open Government Licence. Levels and flows are measured usually every 15 minutes, but the Agency says stations typically send data once or twice a day, more often when flood risk is high; on 2026-10-26 most latest readings were under an hour old.

Price. Free open data under the Open Government Licence, with no requirement for registration.

Coverage. The station list returned 5,539 stations on 2026-10-26 (5,318 level, 1,055 rainfall and 394 flow measures, plus a few wind and temperature). River, rain and groundwater stations are in England; queries around Cardiff, Aberystwyth and Glasgow found none except Newport tide gauges. The tide gauge network (the Agency says 44 locations) also covers Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man; Lerwick, Portrush and Port Erin returned 04:15 UTC readings, while Jersey is listed but returned no readings. coverage.areas lists England only, since the coastal sites are a thin network. Flood warnings are the Agency's, for England. Rain gauge locations are rounded to a 100 m grid and the stations are unnamed.

Timing. Environment Agency: water levels and flows are monitored usually every 15 minutes, but data is transferred typically once or twice per day, more often during heightened flood risk; the readings set is updated every 15 minutes. Tide gauge data typically lags 15 to 30 minutes.

Licence. Open Government Licence v3.0, no registration. The OGL grants a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to copy, publish, distribute, adapt and exploit the information commercially and non-commercially, on condition of attribution. The API asks for the statement 'this uses Environment Agency flood and river level data from the real-time data API (Beta)' (rainfall and tide gauge data have their own wording). The site terms say logos and trademarks are exempt from the OGL. Neither the OGL nor the site terms mention AI or machine-learning training, or resale by name.