Flood Risk Warning System At Thuligadh And Aurahi Watershed
With collabration with USAID pani program,installation of 2 sets of water level monitoring systems were accomplished by SEE at Thuligadh river at B.P. Nagar as well at Aurahi river at Thakurbaba . Low cost technologies were implemented for Water Level Monitoring and Flood Risk Warining.
The ‘Monitoring Unit’ or MUs were installed independently overlooking the Thuligadh river and the Aurahi Khola under study. The unit measures water level at 5‐minute time intervals. The unit logs the measurement along with monitor the system health parameters such as battery level on the on‐board logger. Following logging, the unit uploads the information to cloud server for further processing and thus enable telemetry. Additionally, the unit transmits a localized alert via radio to a nearby resident in its wireless coverage area when a danger threshold is crossed. This assures that early warning for an impending flood reaches the communities in critical situations where a cellular network may not be strong enough. The radio pair for the water level monitoring units were installed in nearby resident of Prem Bahadur Deuba near Thuligadh bridge at B.P. Nagar and Nepal Army’s barrack nearby Aurahi Bridge at Thakurbaba. This ‘Alerting Unit’ or AU triggers the siren in nearby locality when the water threshold is crossed in the river as programmed. This will support a communication mechanism for flowing early warning information from upstream to downstream.
Once the data is available via telemetry on the cloud server, cloud‐based processes are initiated. Primarily the water level and system health data are stored into a database. Then, the data is used to populate timewise water level chart on the web user interface. It may also serve as a basis for data analytics and statistical tools as necessary. The data will be available for download as required. In cases when the danger threshold of water level is crossed, following a verification, SMS alerts will be sent to the vulnerable community members and downstream focal persons. Then, after final confirmation the ‘central alarm units’ or CAU will be triggered for a loud siren warning for entire community with radius of 2 Km downstream. The CAUs were installed at Chatakpur in Kailali district and Madhuban Municipality-1, Patharbajhi, Bardiya.
