Environment Agency hunts VARs for flood-defence materplan

Up to five resellers needed for £20m contract

Five resellers are being sought by the Environment Agency to help it build a digital flood-warning system which could be worth up to £20m.

The project, which will last for two years, will see the five resellers team up to create a digital system designed to warn citizens and companies about imminent flood risks.

The agency said the system will be groundbreaking.

"The aim is to disseminate flood warnings across a broad range of channels and readily adopt future technology developments and emerging digital channels swiftly and at low cost," it said in a recently published tender document.

"The warning system and associated delivery channels will need be intuitive and enable operators to issue messages efficiently, automatically generating additional contextual information, reports and relevant maps for those who want further detail."

Over the course of its life, the contract will be worth between £5m and £20m.

The flood-alert system will be available to members of the public as well as businesses and media outlets, the Environment Agency added.

"The system should be managed as a service, in line with the Government's Digital by Default approach," it said. "The solution will facilitate monitoring of service usage and the introduction improvements on an ongoing basis.

"This could, for example, be new warning areas, implementing boundary changes or capture of additional contextual information. The service should be flexible and scalable enough to accommodate the provision of warning services for other sources of flooding such as surface water and reservoir inundation if policy change brings this into scope."