Its sea wall along the far north-east is set back from the Ouse estuary leaving the largest single reedbed in England.

[1] Adlingfleet is on a minor road set back from the final, southern bank of the Ouse estuary.

From Goole the road passes Swinefleet, Reedness, Whitgift and Ousefleet before turning to the south by Blacktoft Sands RSPB reserve to reach the village.

The boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire comes to a point 820 feet (250 m) south of the village centre.

[3] Before the drainage schemes of the 18th century, much more of the area was saltmarsh, leaving soils with varying pH and high concentrations of metals, including ochre.

It is grade II* listed, and was constructed of ashlar and coursed rubble by John le Franceys, who was Adlingfleet's rector and also a king's counsellor.

[11] Adlingfleet Level is 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) of principally former marshland south west of the Trent-Ouse-Humber confluence.

By July, he had drawn the plans and specifications for the sluice which would connect the main drain to the Trent, and work began on it in August.

[12] On 13 June 1903 the Commissioners asked J Simmons, an engineer from Doncaster, to estimate the cost of a pumping plant, which would be built at the head of the drain.

The cost was estimated at £1,452, and another meeting at Goole on 15 July asked him to obtain formal tenders for the engine and pump house.

[15] After periodic flooding in the 1920s, a survey was made, indicating that the fall on the main drain was around 2 inches per mile (30 mm per km), which was not sufficient for good drainage by gravity.

The cill would be 2.5 feet (0.76 m) lower than the existing one, and the contract was for construction of the sluice and work on the drain itself, to make it wider and deeper.

Construction would be of reinforced concrete, and the sluice would be built slightly to the north of the existing one, so that it could be completed without interrupting the discharge from the drain.

On the river side, the new channel was dredged by the Aire and Calder Navigation Company and covered with stone.

The bridges at Hoggards Lane, Cowlane and Willowbank have been replaced by corrugated steel tubes, backfilled up to the level of the road surface.

The southern track over Eastoft Drain was formerly the course of the Fockerby Branch of the Axholme Joint Railway until its closure in 1965.

Although rectification was deemed to be difficult, the drain was ranked fourth in a list of tributaries that could support the migration of eels and other migratory fish.

Like many rivers in the UK, the chemical status changed from good to fail in 2019, due to the presence of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) and mercury compounds, neither of which had previously been included in the assessment.