Water Level Meter for Alerting Population about Floods

The most important thing immediately before, during and after a disaster occurs is the dissemination of information, a deployment of devices enabled by IoT (Internet of Things) could bring benefits in terms of giving to people information opportunely for making decisions in face of this disaster. In this paper, we present a sensor to measure water level in rivers, lakes, lagoons and streams. For such purpose and to prove our concept, we designed a pilot project through a micro-model that is constructed with a water level measurement sensor based on a simple open circuit that closes when in contact with water and experimentally tested into a water container under a controlled environment. This micro-model is performed on the basis of a programmable electronic board (Netduino Plus 2), an electronic circuit connected to electrical resistances that are located at a specific height, within a water container, when the water level rises and reaches the resistors, varies the impedance, this shows the actual water level and so on for different heights. The information from water level sensor is transmitted via WiFi to a laptop, then this information is also seen in smartphones, where users can see the water level in rivers. Finally, the micro-model is tested by experimental tests under a controlled environment and satisfactory results are obtained.