Over time, climate change has greatly exacerbated damaging flooding events, making them more frequent and extreme. Local, real-time flood data can help the most vulnerable communities plan for and mitigate the most devastating impacts of floods. Yet access to such data is hampered by the high costs of data collection. RISE works with communities to deploy robust, connected networks of low-cost flood sensors built and maintained within communities.
Objective
This project aims to transform the lives of 30+ million people worldwide exposed to climate-exacerbated floods by equipping at-risk communities with networks of low-cost flood sensors that share real-time data for better flood preparedness and response.
Approach & Outcomes
RISE takes an all-encompassing approach to address the impact of flooding on livelihoods, combining sensor technology, educational initiatives, and community participation. Our main focus is a network of low-cost water sensors deployed and built by communities in under-resourced flood-prone regions that provide real-time data on water levels, enabling communities, and authorities with timely and actionable information. Our work focuses on regions at risk of flooding and with racially and ethnically diverse communities that lack access to sensors due to limited economic resources.Outcomes include enhanced flood preparedness, increased community resilience, improved safety for vulnerable populations, and the creation of local employment opportunities. By leveraging diverse partnerships and focusing on technology and community enablement, RISE provides a sustainable solution to flood management.
Our commitment to interoperable data networks sets us apart, enhancing the overall effectiveness and sustainability of the solution. Through diverse geospatial data and methods integration, we seeks to answer the question of how existing flood exposure methodologies can be integrated into a framework that results in new outcomes that enhance disaster response capabilities. To answer this question, this research will focus on three objectives: to integrate existing knowledge into a single output, utilize citizen knowledge in the flood modeling process, and combine outputs using the same methodology into higher-accuracy single outputs.
