Ground Water Flood Forecasting Service

Real-time Groundwater Flood Forecasting Service for England The requirement is for a groundwater flood forecasting service to support The Flood Forecasting Centre's real-time operational decision making on emerging groundwater flood risk.

The service will support the Flood Forecasting Centre's (FFC) operational decision making on groundwater flood risk for the Flood Guidance Statement and Flood Outlook and will also support discussions with local (Environment Agency) forecasters. The service will use a scenario-based approach to include both the most likely (best estimate) and the reasonable worse case scenarios up to 30 days ahead. It will include the use of ensemble rainfall forecasts to provide true probabilistic groundwater flood forecasts.

Forecasts are required for individual borehole locations across the main aquifers of England, these will be scaled-up to provide assessments of impacts at the local as well as a county/unitary authority scale. Forecasts will be delivered to the FFC via the web and supported through consultancy as required. The operational service will run from the beginning of November through to the end of April each year. Also required are pre-season training for operational hydrometeorologists within the FFC, weekly summary reports, an end of season performance report and the option for system development ahead of each winter.

The contract will be for a period of 2 years, with 2 optional additional years (2+1 +1 years). Following award of contract there will be a period of no less than 3 months for system configuration, testing and training, with a fully operational service beginning on 1 November 2021.