From Regional Flood Warnings to Local Decision Support: Applying a Service Design Approach for Voss Municipality

The national flood warning system for Norway is undergoing a renewal process, moving towards risk-based flood forecasting. The FlomRisk project, launched in 2022, involves user participation from five municipalities as pilot study areas. Different flood forecasting setups have been evaluated over three years, including hydrological and hydraulic model selection and methods for aggregating local impact. The project aims to i) improve regional warnings from the national flood warning service by better reflecting local impacts and ii) identifying the municipalities' information needs during critical flooding stages.

A service design approach was used to focus national warning services on creating relevant and useful products. The involvement and codesign with municipalities began in 2022. In 2023, over 100 user meetings and interviews were conducted, covering more than five municipalities, national flood experts, and consultants. Information was gathered on the stages of decision-making during flooding events: before (preparation phase), during (coordination and handling during the crisis), and after (event evaluation and future learning points). Four key needs were identified by the municipalities: 

• Early information to get an overview of possible situations.  What kind of challenges might the emergency response units anticipate.
• Useful and locally relevant information about the situation and possible consequences.
• More effective communication, both internally and externally, towards media and inhabitants.
• Easier documentation of consequences and adaptation measures during ongoing situations.

In 2024, using insights from the previous year, a prototype for Voss Municipality was developed. Voss faces complex flood and natural hazard challenges. The prototype was codeveloped with knowledge from local flood contacts, emergency response leaders, modeling teams, existing products, and efforts across institutions and sectors. The prototype consists of two modes, one is for an ongoing situation, whereas the second is to evaluate the impact of different flood scenarios. 

This initial prototype will be presented to a panel of different municipalities and users, essential for suggestions and making alterations. Different users provide useful feedback and insight based on their varying experiences with flood and natural hazard challenges, knowledge, and organizational structures of emergency responses. This approach helps formulate suggestions on how municipalities can build or integrate their decision support systems to improve local flood responses to regional warnings.