Town CLIMATE RISK

Lerwick Flood Risk Data

Lerwick is a town, within the Shetland Islands council area. The settlement runs to the UK coastline. LocalRisk has flood, heat, air and ground-stability data for 644 postcodes in Lerwick; 12 samples are linked at the foot of this page.

3.1% of postcodes in Lerwick fall into SEPA's high flood-risk band - below the UK average of about 7%. A further 0.2% sit in the medium band; 96.7% are lower-risk. Across the wider Shetland Islands council area the figure is 13.9%, so Lerwick runs lower than its parent council. Two postcodes a few streets apart can land in different bands; what drives the gap is elevation, distance to the nearest watercourse, and how the surrounding drainage performs in heavy rain. The postcode list at the foot of this page links to the full address-level reading for each postcode in Lerwick.

Annual mean PM2.5 across the Shetland Islands area is 3.2 µg/m³ - close to the World Health Organisation guideline of 5 µg/m³. Within Lerwick, 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. Defra's UK-AIR network supplies the underlying figure.

Ground stability in Lerwick 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 Lerwick: SEPA 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 Lerwick; the council link at the top of this page returns to the wider Shetland Islands picture.