FloodAlert: Automated Flood Warning System for DOST Region IV-A Project HaNDA

Abstract

Each year, about 22 typhoons pass through the Philippines bringing extensive flooding. To provide help in disaster prevention and awareness, the Department of Science and Technology Region IV-A with the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (RDRRMC IV-A) have implemented project “Hazard Notification, Dissemination, and Awareness” or HaNDA last 2012. Assessing its original version, this study aimed to develop a contemporary technology that can be used to improve dissemination of disaster-related information. Hence, this project implemented an automated flood warning system for HaNDA system to improve the rainfall and water level monitoring and promote modern information dissemination. A Raspberry-PI enabled device was built for the data acquisition and processing, using combination of cumulative algorithm and experience-based method for flood warning judgment. Cumulative algorithm was used for the rainfall intensity calculation before classification and priority determination. The experienced-based method was utilized as basis for the flood occurrence approximation. Results indicated that overall the system is purposeful. The functional system has its own unique features such as the use of ICT enabled technologies like web-enabled data manipulation and SMS real-time notifications. Further improvement may include predictive algorithm for flooding time together with better design ruggedness can also be incorporated in the future.