Design of a flood management web-based system to facilitate effective decision making and communication during flood events

This study presents a flood management system designed to bridge the gap associated with timely flood prediction. The system combines real-time data collection, expert systems, and multi-channel alert systems to predict flood event. The project consists basically of the transmitting unit and the receiving unit. The Wireless Sensor Network gathers all the sensor data (such as Pressure, Humidity, Temperature, Rainfall and Waterlevel) then node-mcu (ESP8266) uploads them to the thingspeak webpage and transmits the data to the receiver for processing and decision making. The receiver sends the processed signal on the feedback with respect to some preset conditions for the waterlevel (which are 28.59cm for Normal range, 23.50cm for Warning range, 17.89cm for Critical range) and once the critical range which is the danger range is met, the notifications such as alarm, light and SMS are sent to alert the residents. From the table of values in the designed prototype, the critical range of 17.80cm was detected at time 14:26pm on the 3rd August, immediately this threshold was reached, the buzzer alarm continued to beep steadily, the Light bulb was turned ON, an SMS was sent to the registered mobile number. The message was delivered at 14:28pm as shown in the result analysis. This shows a very prompt response time in the face of a flood event. The bulb and alarm alerts remained ON until the water level returned back to the normal range.