A Prototype for Flood Warning and Management System using Mobile Networks

Pakistan has a long track record of devastating floods that have caused chaos in the country as a result of loss of human life, property damage, harm to agriculture, loss of livestock, and breakdown of health. Backed up by heavy monsoonal rains, global climate change has increased the risk of flooding in areas along with the river belts, making it pertinent to have an effective flood notification and monitoring system. The system design consists of three main blocks: the telemetry data collection block; the collection of data from the sensor Units deployed on the shores; the data analysis and processing block; the compilation of algorithms for processing data obtained from sensors and the development of appropriate alerts/warnings for the public and control messages for the spillways; and finally, the information dissemination block; which is used notify community of the flood risk levels and warnings. The model demonstrates the use of the ESP32 development board to gather data from the sensors on precipitation, water flow and water level. The raw data is transmitted to the IoT platform using a 4 G device connected to the ESP microcontroller where it is processed using an online IOT platform based on the algorithm developed in MATLAB, after which the warning alert is sent to the community. The end users are also provided with an android application to monitor the flood risk situation in real time. Results of the experiment demonstrate robustness in flood prediction with reduced likelihood of error.