Next Flood Warning System (NFWS)

Tender description

Next Flood Warning System (NFWS) The EA has used a flood warning system (FWS) to deliver a flood warning service to the public, partners, and the media for over twenty years. FWS enables the EA to fulfil its statutory duty (under the Civil Contingencies Act as a Category 1 responder) to warn the public and EAs partner organisations of risk to life and property because of flooding or the threat of flooding. This is a complex technology estate, and includes geospatial systems, data management systems, telemetry systems, forecasting systems and services all feeding into messages being issued from the FWS. The key capabilities required for the next flood warning system procurement are summarised below: • define (geographic) operational boundaries, target areas, and warning areas; • provide a common operational picture by region; • create warnings and alerts, and manage warnings and alerts in force; and • issue location-based warnings, alerts and other messages through multiple contact channels. The EA intends to procure all capabilities as a single contract because the proposed “single contract” model is consistent with how other international authorities run and procure similar schemes, and all solutions identified in market engagement were Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and breaking this model would have some significant disadvantages for EA (e.g. branching off the product roadmap for all customers).