Who it's for

Flood exposure for planning, not just for response

District- and ward-level flood extent for state disaster authorities, urban local bodies and planning departments — free for the 1% event, across all 36 states and union territories.

743
districts ranked by exposure
36
states & UTs covered
Free
to use the 1% layer
Free & open

Free, with no login: browse the 100-year (1% annual chance) map for all 36 states and union territories, see whether a location falls inside that floodplain, read the 743-district ranking and the per-state analysis, and cite any of it in your own documents. What the free layer does not include is other return periods, future-climate scenarios, or bulk and programmatic access — those are the paid tiers below.

The problem

Most flood decisions in India are made after the water arrives. The maps that would inform zoning, shelter siting and budget allocation are often unavailable, out of date, or held at a scale too coarse to act on.

Where hazard mapping does exist, it is frequently locked inside one department, in a format that will not open in the tools a planning office actually uses.

The result is that the same wards flood every monsoon, the same relief is spent every year, and there is no map to argue for doing it differently.

In practice

5 ways this gets used

Each one is a real workflow — who does it, the situation, the steps, and what comes back.

  1. 01

    Pre-monsoon district prioritisation

    SDMA planning officer

    You have a fixed preparedness budget and 30-odd districts. You need a defensible basis for which ones get resources first, before the season starts.

    1. Pull exposure for every district in the state in one call
    2. Rank by share of buildings inside the modeled 1% floodplain, not by last year’s damage reports
    3. Cross-check the top districts against depth bands to separate broad-shallow from deep-narrow flooding

    What you get: A ranked district table with exposed building counts, percentage share and depth distribution — the evidence base for an allocation note.

    GET /v1/exposure/admin/state/{code}
  2. 02

    Screening a master plan or land parcel

    Town planner / development authority

    A layout, TP scheme or land-use change is up for approval, and nobody can say what share of it is in the floodplain.

    1. Submit the parcel or plan boundary as a polygon
    2. Get building counts, exposed share and depth distribution inside that exact boundary
    3. Attach the result to the file before approval rather than after the first flood

    What you get: Exposure statistics for your own boundary, not a district average — enough to condition or refuse an approval.

    POST /v1/exposure
  3. 03

    Siting shelters — and checking the route to them

    District disaster management officer

    A shelter is only useful if people can reach it during the event. Routes are rarely checked against the same flood that triggers the evacuation.

    1. Query depth at each candidate shelter location
    2. Check the connecting roads against the road exposure layer
    3. Discard shelters whose access road is itself under water at the 1% event

    What you get: A shortlist of shelter sites that are both above the modeled water and reachable during it.

    GET /v1/point · road exposure layer
  4. 04

    Building the case for a resilience budget

    State planning / finance department

    A proposal for drainage, embankment maintenance or relocation needs an independent number that survives scrutiny.

    1. Take the published exposure figure for the district or city
    2. Cite the method, which is public, alongside the number
    3. Show the depth distribution to justify the specific intervention proposed

    What you get: A citable, reproducible exposure figure from an independent source, with its limitations stated — which is harder to dismiss than an internal estimate.

  5. 05

    Putting the layer in your own portal

    State GIS / remote sensing centre

    Your team runs a public dashboard or an internal viewer and wants the hazard layer beside cadastral, ward and infrastructure layers.

    1. Add the tile layer to your existing map stack
    2. Overlay it against your own ward, parcel and asset layers
    3. Query exposure for any boundary you draw, without moving the underlying data

    What you get: The hazard layer visible inside your own portal, with exposure numbers for your own boundaries.

    GET /v1/tiles · POST /v1/exposure

How you get it

Endpoints that serve this work

Admin exposure
GET /v1/exposure/admin/{level}/{code}
Building and transport exposure for a state or district
Organization
Custom AOI
POST /v1/exposure
Exposure inside any polygon you supply
Organization
Point query
GET /v1/point
Depth and Flood Score at a coordinate
Free
Map tiles
GET /v1/tiles
Embed the hazard layer in your portal or dashboard
Organization

What costs what

Free
Browse the map and check whether a location is inside the 100-year floodplain, under today’s climate. No login. Single-point API lookups are rate-limited and are not a production entitlement.
₹499
The Property Flood Report — a detailed flood-risk report for one specific property, with the NEER Flood Score: a single 0–100 rating for that exact plot, the modeled depth behind it, a satellite flood map and the method.
Organization
Portfolios, area exposure and map tiles.
Enterprise
All return periods, future-climate scenarios, batch reports, higher limits and SLAs. Bulk data delivery is licensed case by case.

Organization and Enterprise are commercial plans — see the API page or talk to us. Return periods other than the 100-year event, and climate scenarios, are not part of the free layer.

Related reading

Worth reading next

What this data will not do

This is a modeled 1% annual-chance riverine and pluvial flood at roughly 30 m. It is built for prioritisation and screening — deciding which wards to survey, not replacing a ward-level survey. It does not model cyclone storm surge, dam operations, or landslides, and in steep terrain the depth figures are least reliable.

We publish the limits next to the numbers. A risk map that hides its own weaknesses isn’t a public good.

Talk to us about state or city data

We work with state and city teams on bulk extracts, other return periods and future-climate scenarios.

Also for

Other ways this data is used