When severe flooding struck Wigan on New Year’s Eve, nearly 1,000 residents were displaced and critical parts of the borough were overwhelmed. The council’s flood risk team faced a challenge shared by many local authorities: limited visibility, stretched resources and no way to understand the full extent of what was happening on the ground.
Traditional flood datasets can show where water is likely to gather. They cannot show how a community is actually affected. A deep area of surface water on unused land may be flagged as high risk on a map, while a shallow but disruptive flood outside the home of a vulnerable resident may not appear anywhere.
This gap prompted Wigan Council and KaarbonTech to co-design a new public reporting system that places community insight directly into flood response, operational planning and resilience work.
Why community input is essential in modern flood management
Laura Morrison, Flood Risk Engineering Manager at Wigan Council, summarised the challenge clearly:
“We simply couldn’t get to all the affected areas and report on the incidents, so we needed a new way of working and harnessing the eyes and ears of our communities.”
During the New Year floods, Wigan faced the same reality seen across the country: operational teams cannot be everywhere during a severe weather event. They may be dealing with road closures, emergency support or critical assets while other areas go unseen.
By enabling residents to report flooding instantly from their phones, upload photos and access guidance, Wigan can now capture far richer intelligence: not just where water is, but who and what it is affecting.
Co-designed with Wigan to solve a practical operational problem
The project was built around one principle: combine community insight with live operational data to create a clearer, more accurate picture of what is happening across the network.
The model connects public flood reports directly into KaarbonTech’s drainage and flood platform, enabling the council to:
See live, geo-located reports as residents submit them
Link each report to nearby assets, investigations and mapping
Prioritise response based on community impact
Capture verified evidence for Section 19 reporting
Build a much more accurate picture for future investment bids
The system was deliberately designed to be simple for residents and immediately actionable for council teams, combining Hello Lamp Post’s conversational reporting interface with KaarbonTech’s operational platform for processing, mapping and prioritising every flood report.
Turning community observations into operational intelligence
Laura highlighted the practical value:
“It gives our residents a trusted, easy way to report flooding in real time, while providing the council with live data that feeds into emergency response, Section 19 reporting and future planning.”
This approach effectively crowdsources hundreds of extra “eyes on the ground”, giving the council real-world insight that traditional modelling cannot replicate.
KaarbonTech’s Graeme Forward describes it as a modern form of citizen science:
“Residents are now helping us understand the extent of flooding. We can see where it’s happening as reports come in and prioritise our response. Longer term, that data feeds into resilience planning and helps target investment where it’s needed most.”
Early results and wider sector interest
Since going live, the system has delivered measurable benefits for Wigan:
Real-time situational awareness in severe weather
Improved prioritisation around vulnerable communities
Cleaner, structured data for statutory reporting
Stronger evidence for funding and mitigation schemes
Deeper public engagement in flood response
Improved public understanding of local flood risk through guided reporting
Because the operational logic is transferable, other authorities are already exploring adaptations of the model for their own flood and SuDS challenges.
The project has also been recognised nationally, being shortlisted for the Department for Transport’s Special Recognition Award for Best Use of Technology.
Looking ahead
The Wigan project demonstrates how community reporting, asset data and operational insight can be brought together to create a clearer, more resilient approach to flood management.
It signals a shift toward more connected, more intelligent and more community-aware flood response across the sector.
Watch the full case study video below:
For further reading or to discuss the model with the KaarbonTech team, get in touch.