EXCITING OPPORTUNITY
IN WALES FLOOD FORECASTING
This is an exciting time to join Flood & Coastal Risk Management in Wales. We are delivering
significant improvements to flood forecasting across Wales as part of a ten year investment
strategy to improve the Agency’s flood warning service. It is a demanding challenge but we
are already making progress.
In the last four years we have:
 implemented the new National Flood Forecasting System in Wales;
 delivered the first phase of a new forecasting service for Wales, including
recruitment of a new duty officer rota, delivery of improvements to existing
forecasting models and roll-out of the first of our EU funded forecasting models;
These successes have put in place a solid platform on which we now need to build.
We are now delivering a challenging programme to test and roll-out our new EU funded fluvial
forecasting models. These will improve the timeliness and accuracy of our warnings in a
number of high risk catchments. These include rainfall-runoff, routing and hydrodynamic
models.
We will also need to develop additional models to expand the scope of the forecasting service
to across Wales, as well as embracing new opportunities for improving the information we
provide to internal and external partners relating to the flood risk outlook for Wales. A key part
of this will be working closely with the new National Flood Forecasting Centre in London.
With higher than average rainfall, steep river catchments and dense urban populations in
narrow river valleys, we need to deliver forecasting tools which can deal with fast responding
catchments to provide timely and accurate warnings to the public. Along our coasts both tidal
surges and wave action present significant flood risks to local communities.
Besides the development and operation of the operational flood forecasting service, our team
is also responsible for a Wales-wide public flood awareness campaign and our Regional
Incident Management procedures, including the Regional Base Controller and Welsh
Floodline translator duty rotas.
We also provide strategic direction for flood warning in Wales and maintain close links with
Welsh Assembly Government.
The role
You will provide technical support to the other members of the Flood Forecasting team. Your
role is central to delivering our work. Flood incident duty officers and others in our team will
depend on you.
For those looking for a career in flood risk management, this post offers you an excellent
opportunity to gain experience in a wide range of activities related to flood incident
management.
In particular you will:
 Provide support to our flood incident duty rotas including maintaining the Regional
Incident & Forecasting Room, managing duty officer rotas, maintaining operational
procedures and assisting with weekly handover between duty officers;
 Provide training on equipment and IT systems for duty officers;
 Maintain Welsh translation procedures for our public Floodline recorded message service,
which provides details of flood warnings in force;
 Support our Floodwise public awareness campaign which encourages people to sign up
for our free warning service and take effective action to reduce the impact of flooding;
 Provide general support to the flood forecasting team including GIS mapping, budget
monitoring, procurement, provision of key statistics, data collation/analysis and
maintenance of our technical library;

As part of a rota, undertake an out of hours role as a flood incident duty officer (for which
you will receive an additional allowance and overtime payments).
You will need to be fluent in both written and spoken Welsh to be able to deliver the key
aspects of this role.
We need…
You should be educated to degree level preferably with a background in geography,
environmental science, earth sciences or civil engineering. Along with this, previous work
experience of at least six months would be a distinct advantage, especially work involving
data management, publishing or customer relations.
If you do not hold a degree you must demonstrate considerable relevant experience in flood
risk management, incident response or emergency planning.
Equally important are your personal skills. You need to be personally well organised,
methodical with an attention to detail and able to deliver routine and non-routine tasks to
different deadlines. You must have excellent verbal and written communication skills and be
able to deal confidently with a range of internal customers. An ability to plan ahead and
deliver is essential.
Your work may include implementing new working systems and practices, training people in
them and helping them gain confidence in their use. Appropriate competencies will be
needed to deliver this.
Further information
For an informal discussion of the role, please contact Andy Wall, Flood Forecasting Team
Leader on 029 20 466426.