Other Settlement CLIMATE RISK
Cardiff is a settlement, part of the Cardiff council area. The settlement runs to the UK coastline.
Cardiff inherits its flood band (Lower) from the wider Cardiff council area because Natural Resources Wales does not publish settlement-level breakdowns for every UK location. Search any postcode in Cardiff below for the address-level reading from NRW flood risk maps.
Met Office UKCP18 projections (50th percentile) estimate around 22 days above 25°C per year across the Cardiff area, averaged over the 2021-2040 period under the RCP8.5 high emissions scenario. These are probabilistic projections - the 50th percentile is the central estimate within RCP8.5; the full range of modelled outcomes is wide and lower emissions scenarios would produce lower figures. Heat exposure within Cardiff itself is uneven: top-floor flats, west-facing terraces and properties without through-ventilation hold heat well into the night, while ground-floor homes near tree cover or open ground cool faster. The headline 22-day figure is a council-level UKCP18 estimate (LAD resolution), not a property-level reading.
Annual mean PM2.5 across the Cardiff area is 5.9 µg/m³ - close to the World Health Organisation guideline of 5 µg/m³. Within Cardiff, readings are not flat: postcodes within 200 metres of an A-road or major junction routinely run 30-50% higher during weekday rush hours than residential streets two roads back. The figure is a council-level Defra UK-AIR estimate (1km modelled grid).
Ground stability in Cardiff follows the underlying geology more than the postal boundary. The British Geological Survey GeoSure dataset maps clay shrink-swell risk on a 50-metre cell, and properties on the same street can sit in different bands where a clay seam ends mid-road. Pre-1980 housing on clay-rich ground is the most exposed; properties on bedrock or well-drained sandy soils are typically lower-risk. A postcode-level check picks up that variation.
A free postcode check on LocalRisk covers up to six hazards for any address in Cardiff: NRW flood mapping, BGS ground stability, Met Office heat projections, Defra PM2.5, plus coastal erosion and green-space access where relevant. The postcode list below opens an address-level report for each postcode in Cardiff; the council link at the top of this page returns to the wider Cardiff picture.
Council area level (Cardiff). Search a postcode for detail.