The Environment Agency operate a network of around 1 000 automatic rain gauges for the purposes of providing flood warning, flood forecasting and assessing the water resource situation for England.

The Environment Agency plan to go out to tender in 2020 for the next 4 year term for the supply of new automatic rain gauges.

The contract will be seeking automatic rain gauges that measure rainfall by weighing the accumulated rainfall.

This contract excludes rain gauges that use the tipping bucket method of measurement. It is essential that offered automatic weighing rain gauges have undergone a field comparison against the UK reference storage rain gauge as described in Annex A of BS 7843 Part 3: 2012, installed and operated per that Standard.

At this time we are envisaging a contract duration of 2 years plus two 1 year extensions with an estimated volume of 100 gauges per year.