October 18, 2006
INTELLIGENT
SENSORS GEAR UP FOR REAL-TIME FLOOD MONITORING
An intelligent flood
monitoring
system that could give advance warning of the type of rapid flood that
engulfed
the UK Cornish village of Boscastle
in 2004, is
under test in the Yorkshire Dales. Danny Hughes, Phil Greenwood and
colleagues
from Lancaster
University
won an award for their paper describing the system at the UK e-Science All Hands
Meeting in Nottingham
last month.
The system, which
makes use of
grid computing, could reduce the cost of flood damage by providing
warnings of
local flooding in time for people to take pre-emptive action. Most
current
systems issue general warnings over large areas because they rely on
sparsely
distributed sensors which send information to a central point for
analysis. The
new system, which is based on a network of intelligent sensors that can
be
placed in flood-prone sites, promises rapid, low-cost warnings specific
to
these sites.
Professor Paul
Watson, from Newcastle
University
who chaired the AHM program committee said: "we were impressed with the
way in which the UK
e-Science Program has encouraged the formation of a multi-disciplinary
team to
address an interesting problem of great practical importance to the
population
as a whole; flooding is a major concern in the UK
and many other countries. By
making advances in a set of scientific fields and then combining the
results,
the team has built a novel and interesting new system".
The system now
undergoing trial
in Yorkshire
consists of 13 depth sensors
fixed in locations across a flood plain and a digital camera which
rather like
a traffic speed camera, monitors flow rate from the speed of flotsam
between
two points. Each sensor incorporates a powerful computer, no bigger
than a
packet of gum, which communicates wirelessly with other sensors in the
network
to form a computing grid. The software that enables the sensors to
operate as a
grid was developed under the UK
e-Science Core Program (Open Overlays project). The North-West
Development
Agency is funding the flood monitoring work.
When flood waters
are rising, the
sensors can change how they operate together so that the network can
continue
to monitor the situation even if some sensors are submerged or swept
away. The
sensors are also able to adjust their power consumption so batteries
are
conserved during dry times and power is available for increased
activity during
flood. "As soon as the sensors detect water coming down the valley, the
network gears up," says Danny Hughes.
In order to provide
flood
warnings, the system makes use of flood forecasting models developed at
Lancaster
by Professor
Peter Young and colleagues. The models can be run on the sensor
computing grid
and adjusted so that their predictions stay in line with what the
sensors are
recording. "An interesting possibility is to use such a local warning
system to give advanced warning, even in catchments where the response
to
rainfall is very fast, making flood forecasting very difficult,"
suggests
Professor Keith Beven of Lancaster who is also involved in the project.
"An
example was the Boscastle flood in 2004, where a general forecast of
heavy rain
was issued, but the event was too localized to be able to give a
warning to
Boscastle residents. Fortunately, nobody was killed in that event," he
says.
##
Contact:
Judy
Redfearn
Research
Councils UK
44-179-344-4314
judy.redfearn@epsrc.ac.uk
This
text derived from:
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/
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