Detailed Specification of Requirements
The tenderer is required to provide a service meeting the following technical and service level specifications;
• Provide accurate river flow statistics estimates for Ireland, using a proprietary, proven modelling package and using the most appropriate catchment descriptors. The model should be capable of producing natural and artificially influenced annual and monthly flow statistics, flow duration curves and modelled time series (hydrographs) for all river types and catchment scales. The appropriateness of proposed catchment descriptors should be supported by published evidence where necessary. The existing EPA HydroTool methodology may be used for the production of flow duration curve estimates and statistics. Modelled hydrograph estimates for ungauged cachments should be based on a regionalised daily rainfall-runoff type model.
• The service should be provided in a cloud-based interface with ESRI ArcGIS file types. The service should have a dedicated spatial database for storage of catchment descriptor information, point influence data (impoundments, abstractions and discharges), river flow gauging data and spot gauging data.
• The service must provide estimates of both natural flows and of flows impacted by impoundments, abstractions (surface and groundwater), and discharges (flow duration curve).
• The service must provide estimates that incorporate observed flow data to refine modelled estimates using defendable estimation techniques.
• Provide generated catchment watershed boundaries for selected river stretches or lake outflow points on an established river line network derived from a DTM model or attributed river catchment area grid. A hydrologically corrected DTM (20m resolution) will be supplied by the EPA, however, this DTM may require editing in conjunction with existing EPA rivers, lakes and catchment boundary GIS data sets to facilitate incorporation into the model. Sufficient allowance for such potential editing requirements should also be included for in the tender if required.
• Provide estimates of both natural and influenced annual flow duration curves and modelled daily hydrographs for un-gauged catchments.
• Provide estimates of both natural and influenced monthly and seasonal flow duration curves for un-gauged catchments.
• Provide estimates of both natural and influenced defined flow statistics, including:
- mean monthly flows
- monthly flow duration statistics
- annual flow duration statistics
- defined seasonal flow duration statistics
• Provide estimates of both monthly mean flows and mean monthly run-off volumes.
• Provide adjusted derived flow statistics to account for presence of lakes within catchments
• Provide weighted flow estimates using long term observed flow records from permanent river flow gauging stations.
• Provide flow duration curves and daily modelled hydrographs for un-gauged catchments using spot flow gauging data and attributed flow duration from gauged catchments of similar character.
• Provide derived catchment statistics that will assist in understanding surface water/groundwater connectivity, for example BFIHOST, BFI.
• The service must provide the ability to view, manage and update all artificial influence data, gauged flow data and spot flow gauging data through a graphical user interface.
• Provide storable and printable reports of summary catchment descriptor information and summary catchment influence data for each flow estimate generated in an appropriate format. These formats should be of generic type and compatible to upload to standard software packages such as Microsoft Excel, Access and Word (e.g. CSV, dbf, text, etc.).
• Produce summary reports of calculated errors for any given flow estimate performed.
• Provide the facility of incorporating actual field flow measurements (spot gauging data) into the model to assist in improving modelled estimates and to be able to update the model on new abstraction and discharge data to ensure artificially influenced statistics are current and accurate.
• Provide estimates of abstraction pressures based on flow duration curve percentages and waterbody sensitivity classes provided by the EPA in spreadsheet and/or GIS formats.
• Provide a vector GIS layer based on the EPA Rivers layer which is appended with the naturalised flow statistics for the downstream point of each node to node river reach in the shapefile. This file will be made publicly available by the EPA on their geoportal for view and download. Ideally a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 open licence would apply.
• Provide and maintain a hosted service available internally to the staff in the Hydrometric and Groundwater Section of the EPA capable of providing naturalised flow duration curve statistics, modelled hydrographs, as well as scenario modelling, eflow analysis and water resources management functionality. It is envisaged that up to 5 individual user licences will be required for this service.
• Hosted Service