Notice of Intent to Sole Source - Enhance HydroBID water management model suite to facilitate linkage to a front-end excel interface

This is a Special Notice prepared in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) subpart 5.2, Synopsis of Proposed Contract Actions. A Solicitation will not be posted, however any firm who believes it can perform the required services may give written notice to the Contracting Officer within 15 days of publication of this Special Notice. Supporting evidence must be in sufficient detail to demonstrate the ability to comply with the requirement. Responses received will be evaluated; however a determination by the Government to compete the requirement based on the responses to this Special Notice is solely the discretion of the Government. The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Humphreys Engineer Center Support Activity (HECSA) intends to award a sole source fixed-price contract to Research Triangle Institute.

This Notice of Intent to award a sole source contract is not a request for competitive proposals. Any responses or inquiries to this notice must demonstrate clear and convincing evidence that competition will be advantageous to the Government. All information received from this notice shall be used for planning and market research purposes only. The determination to refrain from competing proposed contracts based on responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The Government will not pay for the preparation of any information submitted or use of such information. 

IWR is currently responsible for a number water resources activities or programs, including evaluation of Civil Works (CW) strategic plans, CW policies and programs, investment and financial analysis, performance measurements and evaluations, infrastructure analysis, climate change and other water related activities. Internationally, IWR provides technical assistance to international organizations and other countries, encompassing a broad range of water and related land resources issues. This activity is part of a larger USACE package of OASA(CW)-approved activities funded through the Interagency & International Services Division of USACE HQ, under the authority of WRDA 1996 section 234, as amended. 

The HydroBID suite of tools was developed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and includes three main component models, (1) a hydrologic model (HydroBID WAM), (2) a water regulation and allocation model (HydroBID ALLOC), and (3) a hydraulic model (HydroBID Flood). The HydroBID Support Center or the “Centro de Soporte HydroBID” (CeSH) provides free technical support across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region. Included with the HydroBID suite are also free global land use, soils, and hydrography datasets.

IWR seeks services and support in adding the following capabilities to the HydroBID suite of tools:

• Develop the capabilities to couple excel and ‘HydroBID WAM’, ‘HydroBID ALLOC’ and ‘HydroBID Flood’ to facilitate collaborative modelling with stakeholders by building a capability to:
  • Develop customized front-end interfaces in Excel,
  • Define desired water resources actions and their relationships with HydroBID inputs in the Excel interface,
  • Define performance metrics and their relationships with HydroBID outputs in the Excel interface.
  • Define different water management actions or projects in the Excel interface,
  • Call HydroBID from the Excel interface to run simulations,
  • View and compare the simulated results of different actions or projects on the Excel interface,
  • Save and compare multiple actions on the excel interface.

• Create building blocks for excel interfaces that can be used by stakeholders to easily create their own customized interfaces.
• Model simple constituent and phosphorus transport.
• Develop the capability to stress test (or sensitivity analysis) the status quo, or a project or action. This entails iterative simulations under incrementally more stressful meteorological scenarios or water demand/use scenarios.

Acknowledgement of receipt of responses will not be made, nor will respondents be notified of the evaluation of the information received. Interested parties may express interest and provide a capability statement.