Rivers Agency

The Rivers Agency is an Executive Agency of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), in the Northern Ireland Executive. It is the statutory drainage and flood defence authority for Northern Ireland under the terms of the Drainage (Northern Ireland) Order 1973.

DARD is the competent authority for the implementation of the EU Floods directive and has delegated the day to day delivery of the directive to Rivers Agency.

The Agency Headquarters is located at Hydebank in Belfast and it has Regional headquarters in Lisburn and Omagh and offices in Coleraine, Craigavon and Ballinamallard.

The Strategic Flood Map (NI) - Rivers & Sea was developed by Rivers Agency in co-operation with the Department of the Environment (DOE). The primary aim of the Strategic Flood Map is to provide an illustration of the areas throughout Northern Ireland that are considered to be at risk of flooding from rivers and the sea. In December 2011 a new version of the map was released that refreshed the information on rivers and the sea, updated the historical information to include the latest flood events and for the first time it included a surface water flood layer.