diff --git a/include/plat/arm/board/common/v2m_def.h b/include/plat/arm/board/common/v2m_def.h
index 888792e..7cee4e8 100644
--- a/include/plat/arm/board/common/v2m_def.h
+++ b/include/plat/arm/board/common/v2m_def.h
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright (c) 2015, ARM Limited and Contributors. All rights reserved.
+ * Copyright (c) 2015-2016, ARM Limited and Contributors. All rights reserved.
  *
  * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
  * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
@@ -119,13 +119,26 @@
 #define V2M_SP810_CTRL_TIM2_SEL		(1 << 19)
 #define V2M_SP810_CTRL_TIM3_SEL		(1 << 21)
 
+/*
+ * The flash can be mapped either as read-only or read-write.
+ *
+ * If it is read-write then it should also be mapped as device memory because
+ * NOR flash programming involves sending a fixed, ordered sequence of commands.
+ *
+ * If it is read-only then it should also be mapped as:
+ * - Normal memory, because reading from NOR flash is transparent, it is like
+ *   reading from RAM.
+ * - Non-executable by default. If some parts of the flash need to be executable
+ *   then platform code is responsible for re-mapping the appropriate portion
+ *   of it as executable.
+ */
 #define V2M_MAP_FLASH0_RW		MAP_REGION_FLAT(V2M_FLASH0_BASE,\
 						V2M_FLASH0_SIZE,	\
 						MT_DEVICE | MT_RW | MT_SECURE)
 
 #define V2M_MAP_FLASH0_RO		MAP_REGION_FLAT(V2M_FLASH0_BASE,\
 						V2M_FLASH0_SIZE,	\
-						MT_MEMORY | MT_RO | MT_SECURE)
+						MT_RO_DATA | MT_SECURE)
 
 #define V2M_MAP_IOFPGA			MAP_REGION_FLAT(V2M_IOFPGA_BASE,\
 						V2M_IOFPGA_SIZE,		\
diff --git a/plat/arm/board/fvp/fvp_common.c b/plat/arm/board/fvp/fvp_common.c
index affd0b8..002cff6 100644
--- a/plat/arm/board/fvp/fvp_common.c
+++ b/plat/arm/board/fvp/fvp_common.c
@@ -69,6 +69,9 @@
  * Table of memory regions for various BL stages to map using the MMU.
  * This doesn't include Trusted SRAM as arm_setup_page_tables() already
  * takes care of mapping it.
+ *
+ * The flash needs to be mapped as writable in order to erase the FIP's Table of
+ * Contents in case of unrecoverable error (see plat_error_handler()).
  */
 #if IMAGE_BL1
 const mmap_region_t plat_arm_mmap[] = {