Develop a bottom-up flood early warning system: a community perspective

Extreme weather events have caused heavy rainfall and flooding in countries such as Japan and Libya. Experts analyse that strengthening flood control facilities alone will not be enough to cope with the heavy rainfall caused by extreme weather. It is important to enhance the preparedness of local residents to prevent and avoid disasters. The rapid development of sensors and the Internet of Things not only improves the efficiency of flood monitoring, but also reduces the maintenance cost of related sensors and systems. Therefore, a decentralized, bottom-up system architecture can be easily implemented at the community level. And that it can provide local residents with timely monitoring information and emergency response accordingly. To meet the needs of community-based flood emergency response, this research invents a flood monitoring sensor which has the advantages of easy installation, low cost and affordable maintenance fee. A web page with Responsive Web Design is also developed to interact with users for communication purposes. Finally, a rapid flood model is implemented to provide aerial flood forecasts after receiving point observations from the sensors. The above system has been integrated and implemented in a local community in Taipei, proving its promising potential for further applications in the future.