Dorset Stour catchment
• Throop • Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole • ID: 43212 • Level
(22m ago) • 1 reading/hr • 173 views
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You'll be notified when this gauge is rising more than 0.10 m/hr — a sign of rapidly increasing water levels.
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Current Level
0.330 m
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.335 m
24h Min
0.315 m
Typical Range
0.35 - 1.20
m
Highest Recorded
2.82 m
4 Dec 2025
Since Nov 2012
Current level is 12% of this
🚽Sewage overflows nearby
Recent Water Levels
🌍 floodradar.co.uk
1 day
Prediction V2
Prediction Eris
Nimbus beta
Experimental model fusing soil moisture, river flow, groundwater and catchment
character. Shown with its calibrated 10–90% confidence band. Under evaluation —
not yet promoted, so treat as a second opinion.
River Flow
90 days
Daily mean discharge (m³/s) with the daily min–max band, from the EA Hydrology API. Flow is the volume of water passing the gauge — often a more direct flood signal than level.
Long Term
🌍 floodradar.co.uk
—
Consecutive rainy days0 → 10+
Days Above Normal
This year vs 5-year monthly range
Recent Readings
Rising · +0.7 cm over 6h
23 Aug 22:45▲ +0.3 cm0.330 m
23 Aug 21:30▲ +0.1 cm0.327 m
23 Aug 21:15▬ steady0.326 m
23 Aug 21:00▲ +0.1 cm0.326 m
23 Aug 20:45▲ +0.1 cm0.325 m
23 Aug 20:30▬ steady0.324 m
23 Aug 20:15▲ +0.1 cm0.324 m
23 Aug 20:00▬ steady0.323 m
23 Aug 19:45▬ steady0.323 m
23 Aug 19:30▲ +0.1 cm0.323 m
23 Aug 19:15▬ steady0.322 m
23 Aug 19:00▬ steady0.322 m
23 Aug 18:45▬ steady0.322 m
23 Aug 18:30▬ steady0.322 m
23 Aug 18:15▬ steady0.322 m
23 Aug 18:00▬ steady0.322 m
23 Aug 17:45▼ -0.1 cm0.322 m
23 Aug 17:30▬ steady0.323 m
23 Aug 17:15▬ steady0.323 m
23 Aug 17:000.323 m
Rainfall & Weather
Loading rainfall and weather data...
Flood history near this gauge
Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2007 for the 19 flood
areas linked to this gauge (nearest 2.0 km away).
Warnings apply to a whole flood area, not necessarily this exact spot. Years before 2006 aren't covered by the EA's historic record.
See also the Throop flood history.
Geographic coordinates may reflect the access point for the gauge, and not the precise location in the watercourse that it is taking readings from.
Catchment Character
🌊 Groundwater-fedSlow and steady — fed largely by groundwater, so levels change gradually, not in sudden spikes.
Your catchment is all the land that drains rainfall into the river above this gauge. Its character — how
steep, wet, wooded, urban or chalky that land is — decides how fast rain here turns into a rising river. A steep, bare or clay
catchment is “flashy” (rises and falls quickly, floods easily); a flat, chalk or well-wooded one is
slow and steady. The tiles below put numbers to that; the flow-duration curve reads left-to-right
from the river’s typical high flows (Q5) down to its low flows (Q95) — a steep curve means a flashy river.
The physical character of the land that drains to this gauge, and how it shapes its flood response — from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).
Baseflow Index
0.66
groundwater-fed — slow & steady
Avg Annual Rainfall
933 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +4% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
2.0%
largely rural
Median Annual Flood
101 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Recorded Flow
168 m³/s
9 Jul 2012
Flow-Duration Curve
Daily flow (m³/s) exceeded each % of the time — a steep curve is flashy, a flat one is steady. Q5 high · Q50 median · Q95 low.
Land Cover (2023)
Woodland 9%Grassland 52%Arable 32%Urban 6%
Grassland 58% → 52% since 1990
Flow affected by: public water supply, groundwater abstraction, effluent returns.
Photos
Gauging-station photographs from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).
Mixed geology - predominantly Chalk (~50%); some clay (~30%), limestone including Great Oolite series, Corallian and Cornbrash (approx. 10%) and Upper Greensand (approx. 10%). Land use: rural and agricultural. No major changes.
The station
Compound Crump profile weir, centre crest 5m wide and 2 higher flanking crests 18m wide.
How it measures flow
Site unapproachable in flood conditions, gaugings can be problematic due to the wide approach channel and weed growth. High flow gaugings carried out at New Road Bridge (5km upstream) or Ensbury (4km upstream). Some combined gauging of the Stour and Moors River has taken place at Blackwater Bridge (SZ 134 959). Rating incorporates flow through one bypass channel just upstream of station: mill channel. Two peak flow ratings applied across period of record. Pre-1987 the rating was derived from weir dimensions to produce a theoretical rating in the modular range (including two small offtakes immediately upstream) with an extension for non-modular range fitted to spot flow gaugings. Post-1987 the rating was derived from weir dimensions for the main structure and mill channel only (not the Lodden Stour offtake) in the modular range and fitted to gaugings above. The post-1987 rating only takes the mill channel into account and assumes the Stour Lodden is blocked up. Both were accounted for in the pre-1987 rating.
Flow regime
Substantial ground and surface water abstractions including for public water supply. Runoff increased by effluent returns from upstream waterworks.
The flow record
Peak flows rejected as unrepresentative of the catchment from 2022-2023 because large tree caught on weir for entire water year. Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in August 2025 (WINFAP Files v14).
How this gauging station is built and how long it has measured (NRFA / UKCEH).
Gauge type
Gauging structure
Operating since
1973
Station datum
4.4 mAOD
Flow record
1973–2024 · 51 yrs · 100% complete
Peak-flow record
since 1972
Hydrometric area
43
Measured by
Environment Agency
Nearby Groundwater
Soil Moisture
Possible storm-overflow correlation
🚽 Storm overflows on this river
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Stour at Throop flooding today?
The current level is 0.33m, which is below the typical range. Flooding is very unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Throop?
Based on the most recent readings, the level is currently steady. The chart above shows the last 7 days of measurements, updated roughly every 15 minutes.
Why is the level slowly falling?
When little or no rain has fallen for a while, a river level gradually drops as the water stored in the ground and soil drains away with nothing to replace it. This is called baseflow recession and is normal in dry spells. A gentle decline like this is expected and is not a sign of a problem — downstream gauges often recede a little faster than headwaters further upstream, and levels recover once rain returns.
What is a normal level for the River Stour at Throop?
The typical range at this station is 0.35m to 1.20m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 1.20m are higher than usually seen and may indicate a flood risk.
How often is this river level data updated?
Readings are taken by the Environment Agency gauge roughly every 15 minutes and FloodRadar refreshes its data continuously, so the level shown is normally less than an hour old.
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📮 Flood risk by postcode near this gauge
Postcodes within 5 km with properties in the Environment Agency’s rivers-and-sea flood-risk bands:
