 Flooding of villages on its route and its tributaries (such as Brompton near Northallerton) is a problem because of limited availability of land upstream to store water in times of high flow.The Environment Agency and the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, have undertaken work along the course of the river to remediate these issues.The River Wiske is underlain by a range of geological deposits, including undifferentiated sandstone, conglomerate, undifferentiated mudstone, siltstone and sandstone from the Triassic period, and the Lias group consisting of mudstone, siltstone, limestone and sandstone from the 
Mesozoic period.