Flood Forecasting and Early Warning: An Example from the UK Environment Agency - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 193

Fig. 10.10 NFFS operator client, time series display and spatial display for Environment Agency
South East Region (EA 2013a ) (Contains Environment Agency information © Environment
Agency and database right)

10.6 Flood Warnings

10.6.1 Floodline Warnings Direct

Once it has been decided fl ooding is possible, and a fl ood warning should be dissemi-
nated, the next challenge is to quickly communicate this message to the potentially
affected people. The Environment Agency commissioned Fujitsu to create Floodline
Warnings Direct (FWD), which was delivered in 2006, to undertake this task.
The application developed by Fujitsu is based on a service-oriented architecture
(SOA) that uses 'standard' platforms, like XML, SOAP, and J2EE, to enable the
seamless exchange of data between applications. FWD also employs a combination
of highly innovative technologies, such as spatial databases, Text to Speech conver-
sion and Outbound Communication/Telephony Control software, which are acces-
sible through an easy to use web browser front end (Fujitsu 2008 ).