When flooding occurs, it is rarely the result of a single asset failure. It is the outcome of multiple factors interacting at once, including drainage assets, highways infrastructure, land, and ownership boundaries. Despite this, the information needed to understand what has happened is often fragmented across different systems, teams and organisations.
For Lead Local Flood Authorities, Section 19 investigations are a core part of understanding flood events. They bring together evidence of what happened, where it happened, and which authorities or assets were involved. They also form the foundation for future action, whether that is identifying mitigation measures, supporting funding bids, or informing long-term planning.
Flood incident data, drainage asset records, highways drainage information, ownership boundaries, and historic investigations are typically held in separate systems. In many authorities, LLFA teams and highways teams operate with different datasets and different priorities. As a result, understanding a single flood event often requires pulling together fragmented information from across multiple sources, which slows down investigations and makes it harder to produce clear, evidence-based outcomes.
This separation between datasets also leads to siloed working. Section 19 investigations often sit within LLFA teams, while highways teams continue to manage drainage assets operationally, with limited visibility of how those assets contribute to flood events.
The connection between cause, impact and responsibility is there, but it is not always easy to see or evidence.
As part of our Flood Resilience development, we have focused on bringing these elements together into a single operational view. Flood reports are no longer standalone records. They are connected to nearby assets, ownership information, known risk areas and previous investigations, allowing teams to see how each event relates to the wider system and how similar issues have occurred over time.
This creates a structured and evidence-ready picture of flooding that can be used both during an event and afterwards. Section 19 investigations can be supported with clearer, more accessible data, while highways and operational teams gain a better understanding of how their assets influence flood risk.
The outcome is a more joined-up approach. Instead of relying on disconnected datasets, authorities can build a clearer understanding of what is happening across the network, support stronger funding cases, and make more informed decisions about where intervention is needed most.