Report: Risk and climate risk
The Risk Report will become part of Placepoint Fusion. The report itself is not finished, but everything it builds on is available today: flooding, landslides, quick clay, ground conditions, radon, pollution, sea level and nature values. This page goes through the themes one by one and shows where each of them is answered.
The report is coming, the basis is here
The report gathers the risk picture for one property or an entire portfolio in one document, with maps and a source reference for each finding. Until it is ready you do the round below yourself, map layer by map layer, or let Placepoint AI put it together. It is the same data in all three cases; the difference is who writes the document.
What makes the round quick is that the hazards sit as layers in the same map. Previously each theme required its own portal: the flood zones at one directorate, the loose masses at another, the contaminated land in a third database, and the hazard zones in the municipality's planning viewer. Now you click the property and turn on the layers. What does not get quicker is the assessment: a map tells you that the conditions may be present, not what they mean for this particular project.
See also: Assess risk on placepoint.no.
Three questions that get mixed up
"Risk" covers three different questions in the property industry, and they have different answers and different sources. The report keeps them apart, and you should do the same when you read it.
| The question | What it is about | Where the answer sits |
|---|---|---|
| Physical risk | What can hit the building where it stands: flooding, landslides, quick clay, radon, contaminated land | The map layers under Risk and Geology |
| Climate risk | The same hazards seen ahead, plus the requirements that come with them: energy, emissions, reporting | This page and Report: ESG and sustainability |
| Objection risk | Whether a project meets resistance from the Statsforvalteren (the county governor) or a sector authority | Report: Nature values and objections |
A bank assessing a mortgage asks about the first, an investor with a reporting obligation about the second, and a developer with a plan in the making about the third. The same property, three answers, and one map that covers all three.
Who this is for
Banks and credit departments that need to document the mortgage security, insurers pricing a portfolio, property developers who want to know what the site can take before they draw, and managers who need to tell the owners what sits in the portfolio. Municipal case handling uses the same round from the other side of the table.
The data basis is the same wherever in the country the property lies: around 320 main map layers in 18 categories, with around 2,500 sub-layers, and 3.5 million matrikkelenheter. See Placepoint in numbers for the full overview.
The themes the report goes through
| Theme | What you are looking for | Where in Placepoint |
|---|---|---|
| Flooding | Mapped flood zone, caution surface, earlier events, protection structures | Risk, Water |
| Landslides | Caution for soil, flood, rock and snow avalanches | Risk |
| Quick clay | Mapped hazard zone with hazard level, and caution area | Risk |
| Ground conditions | Marine border, marine clay, loose mass type, existing boreholes | Geology |
| Radon | Caution level in the ground | Risk |
| Contaminated land | Registered sites, and earlier use that is not registered | Risk, Pollution |
| Sea level and storm surge | Levels for properties by the sea | Risk |
| Surface water | Where the water runs when a lot of it comes | The municipality's own map, with proxies in Water |
| Nature values | Protected areas, nature types, species, outdoor recreation | Nature |
| Land cover type | Bog, cultivated land and forest, which are separate grounds for a case | Agriculture |
| Climate requirements | Energy label, technical regulations, taxonomy | Buildings, Report: ESG |
The sweep is done on the matrikkelenhet and a belt around it. A quick clay zone, a protected cultural heritage site or a registered location a hundred metres away does not hit the building, but it does hit the planning work, and a review that only looks at the plot itself reports "no findings" on something that comes back in the first consultation round.
The map layers are turned on from Map layer in the left menu. See How to use map layers if you have not done it before. The whole round done on one property, with findings and follow-up, is in Assess risk.
Flooding and watercourses
Flooding is the theme with the most layers, because it exists at several resolutions. A flood zone is calculated for a specific watercourse with a specific return period. A caution surface is a coarse model that covers the whole country. They answer two different questions, and a property can lie outside one and inside the other.
| Map layer | Answers |
|---|---|
| Flood hazard map | Mapped extent where Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat (NVE) has calculated the watercourse |
| Caution surfaces, (regulated) water, dams | Modelled extent where there is no detailed zone |
| Flood areas, flood protection areas, and flood events | What has actually happened before |
| Protection structures | What has been built against it, and by whom |
| Watercourses and catchments | Where the water comes from and where it runs |
The order is worth keeping: first whether the property lies in a zone, then whether there is a registered event, and finally whether a protection structure has been built. A protection structure changes the risk picture, but it does not show in the flood zone: the zone is usually calculated without the structure, and the municipality's provisions say whether the structure was used as the basis for building approval.
A property without a mapped flood zone is not documented as safe. It may lie by a watercourse NVE has not calculated, and then the caution surface is all you have.
Landslides, quick clay and ground conditions
Ground conditions move the cost picture more than any other theme. The order professionals use is: does the property lie below the marine border, is there mapped quick clay, and what does the loose masses map say.
| Map layer | Answers |
|---|---|
| Marine border | Whether marine clay is possible at all |
| Possibility of marine clay | Probability within the marine border |
| Quick clay | Mapped hazard zones with hazard level and consequence class |
| Quick Clay – Caution | Areas that trigger a duty to assess |
| Landslides | Caution for soil, flood and rock slides |
| Snow avalanches, Armed Forces hazard map | Snow avalanches where they are mapped |
| Loose masses | Deposit type and depth |
| NADAG – ground investigations | Existing boreholes nearby |
An existing borehole in NADAG a few tens of metres away is often what decides whether a geotechnical engineer has to come out to the property in this phase or the next. For a landslide hazard zone with a hazard level, the safety requirement is set out in the building technical regulations, and it is the municipality that enforces it.
A caution map is not a hazard zone. It says the conditions may be present, not that they have been mapped and assessed. The difference decides whether the finding should be priced in or investigated further.
Radon
Radon susceptibility from Norges geologiske undersøkelse (NGU) shows how likely it is that the ground gives off radon. The map is based on bedrock, loose masses and measurements in the area, not on measurements in the individual building.
The requirement for a radon measurement in rental housing follows from the radiation protection regulations and applies regardless of what the caution map shows. A low caution level exempts no one from measuring.
Contaminated land
Contaminated land and Soil Contamination – Areas show sites registered with Miljødirektoratet, with the degree of impact. Industrial emissions shows the businesses that report emissions today.
The register is not exhaustive, and this is where the reading differs from the other themes: the absence of a registration is not a finding. Earlier use is the strongest signal you have, and you read it in two places. The expired list under Building in the Property panel shows buildings that have been demolished, and a former workshop, petrol station or dry cleaner is a reason to investigate whatever the register says. Historical aerial photos show the area year by year back to the 1950s, and a site that was an industrial area in 1975 carries that with it.
Sea level and storm surge
High tide / storm surge gives the levels for properties by the sea, and is the theme where sea level rise and storm surge meet: the storm surge is the event, the sea level rise is the level it starts from. For a building with a basement or a technical room below ground, the difference between today's level and the future level is the question itself.
Surface water, the theme the registers do not cover
Surface water is the physical hazard that most often causes damage to buildings, and the only one on this list without a national dataset. There is no nationwide model of where the water runs in an extreme rainfall event, and a risk report that does not say so pretends to cover more than it does.
Three layers are the closest proxies, and they do not replace a surface water map:
| Map layer | Answers |
|---|---|
| Drainage lines | Where the water naturally gathers and runs |
| Soil moisture | How wet the ground already is |
| Grey areas | How much of the area is sealed, and therefore does not take in water |
Surface water management is regulated by the municipality, and the surface water map sits in the municipality's own planning viewer where it exists. The report says what is known and what has not been assessed, rather than leaving the theme out.
Nature values and objections
Nature values belong in the risk picture because they hit feasibility rather than the building: a registration does not change the mortgage, but it can stop the zoning. Report: Nature values and objections covers the theme in full. What belongs here is how the findings should be read.
| Map layer | Answers |
|---|---|
| Valued nature types | Mapped nature types with a value |
| Species of national management interest | Threatened and priority species that weigh heavily in an assessment |
| Nature and cultural areas | Protected areas and conservation decisions |
| Land cover types (AR5) | Bog, cultivated land and forest, where farmland protection gives its own case process |
| Cultural heritage - Askeladden WMS | Cultural heritage and SEFRAK-registered buildings |
Two things decide whether a finding actually means something, and both are easy to overlook.
A species record is an observation at one point in time, not a confirmed occurrence today. Closely related species get confused with each other, many registrations are imprecisely located, and some are old enough that the occurrence may be gone. The report therefore gives the year of the record and the precision where the source has it, and a record that is to carry a conclusion is verified against Artsdatabanken (the species database) before it is used.
Proximity to a protected area does not trigger an objection in itself. An objection is to be considered when a planning proposal may conflict with protected areas under naturmangfoldloven (the Nature Diversity Act) chapter V, see § 77, also when the proposal lies outside the protected area itself. But the conflict must be shown against the values the protection is meant to safeguard. Distance alone is not an argument, either for or against.
Sensitive Species Data such as nesting and breeding areas are not publicly available and are not included. They require a separate agreement with the Statsforvalteren for each project.
Climate risk over time
Physical risk is one half of climate risk. The other is transition risk: the requirements coming for the building, and what they do to its value. A building that does not meet the requirements in a few years is a stranded asset, and that assessment starts in the registered information about the building itself.
| Source | Answers |
|---|---|
| The ESG tab in the Building panel | The energy certificate with a rating and issue date, and which technical regulations the building falls under |
| Enova Energy Labelling | The energy ratings for the whole area, not just one building |
| EU-Taxonomy-Buildings | The building's position against the taxonomy criteria |
| Building age | Which rules the building was designed to |
A certificate older than ten years is no longer valid, and an outdated label is information too: it means no one has had reason to measure the building for a decade. Report: ESG and sustainability takes this further, with CRREM, greenhouse gas accounting and the EU taxonomy.
Actual energy use, emissions and a finished taxonomy assessment build on your own measurement data and are not found in public registers. The report covers the registered basis.
What rests on the property
The legal risk shares the page with the physical one in a credit case, and it is read in the panel rather than in the map. The Owners tab in the Property panel gives the ownership chain and the counterparty, Government cases gives orders, appeals and unfinished building cases, and the Land registers button gives the land register extract with mortgages and easements. That whole review is in Report: Due diligence.
An unresolved order is often the risk that delays a case the most, and it sits in the municipality's records, not in any hazard zone map.
The report itself
The report is built around one theme per row and a clear threshold: either the theme registers on this property, or it does not. The themes that register get a justification, a consequence and a proposed measure; the themes that do not register are listed as checked. It is that list that makes the document verifiable, and that lets a case officer see the difference between "no risk" and "not investigated".
| Part | Content |
|---|---|
| Summary | All the themes, registering or not, on one page |
| Themes that register | Theme, justification, possible consequence and possible measures, one per row |
| Themes that do not register | The themes checked without findings, with what was read |
| A map for each finding | The property boundary and the triggering map layer in the same image |
| Consequence | What the finding means for time, cost and feasibility |
| Objection assessment | The themes that may trigger an objection, with a justification. Model-based, and marked as such |
| Methodology and sources | Which registers and map layers have been read, with the date |
| Not assessed | The themes without a data basis, surface water first |
Two things are worth noting about the format. The summary lists the themes that do not register just as clearly as those that do, because a theme missing from a report cannot be told apart from a theme without findings. And the objection assessment is an assessment, not a decision: the Statsforvalteren exercises professional discretion, and the report gives the basis those judgements build on.
The report replaces no geotechnical assessment, no ROS analysis under the Planning and Building Act and no legal advice. It gathers what the registers say, with source and date, so the specialists start somewhere other than zero.
Create the report today with Placepoint AI
Placepoint AI has access to the same sources as the map layers above, and writes the document from a single prompt. Examples of climate risk and credit reports made this way are on Examples and tips. The prompt does not need to be longer than this:
Create a risk report for [matrikkel number or address]. Go through flooding,
landslides, quick clay, ground conditions, radon, contaminated land, sea level and storm surge,
nature values and land cover type. Mark each theme as a hit or not, with
justification, possible consequence and proposed measures. Give the source and date for each
piece of information, and state clearly which themes are not covered by the registers.
If the answer is going into a credit case, ask for one row per theme: theme, hit, justification, source, date, measure. The standard instruction for banking and credit on the same page asks for "not covered by the register" where coverage is missing, rather than leaving the row out, and that rule is what makes the document readable for a credit committee.
If you are in the map, the Agent does the short lookup without switching tools: "Which hazard zones hit this property?" turns on the relevant layers and answers in text with links.
Related views
- Assess risk - the whole round walked through on one property, with findings and follow-up.
- Risk - the hazard types and how they are read off in the map.
- Map layer: Risk and Map layer: Geology - the layers individually, with filtering.
- Report: Nature values and objections - the nature values and the objection risk in full.
- Report: ESG and sustainability - energy, certification and transition risk.
- Report: Due diligence - the risk track together with title, plan and tenants.
- Analysis - draw an area and run the numbers on what you find.
Data hosts
- Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat (NVE) (flooding, landslides, quick clay, protection structures).
- Norges geologiske undersøkelse (NGU) (loose masses, marine border, radon, ground investigations).
- Miljødirektoratet (contaminated land, nature types, protected areas).
- Artsdatabanken (species records).
- Norsk institutt for bioøkonomi (NIBIO) (land cover type and cultivable soil).
- Enova (energy certificates).
- Kartverket (matrikkel and Grunnboken) and Geodata (distribution).
- Municipal planning provisions and hazard zones.