Enhancing Flood Management with Coastal Ecosystems and IoT

The most prevalent form of natural disaster is flooding. Flood events can devastate human life, property, and the environment, typically caused by intense rainfall, rapid snowmelt, or storm-generated surges. 

Shifts in global weather patterns have led to increased flood risks in certain regions. The UK, for example, has seen a 7.3 percent increase in precipitation over the past four decades, accompanied by a 6.5cm rise in sea levels leading to an increase in flooding.

Protecting against floods is a difficult engineering task, especially in at-risk, low-lying river basins and coastal zones. Human-made defenses are crucial, yet natural barriers like trees and carefully balanced biomes also significantly prevent floods and erosion.

Whether human-made or naturally formed, flood defenses rely on monitoring systems to stay effective. In recent years, the integration of IoT technology into flood management systems has proven to be a powerful tool.

The Challenges of Flood Management in Coastal Regions

Managing floods in coastal and river basin regions requires thorough prevention strategies, comprehensive countermeasures, and ongoing monitoring and maintenance. 

In contrast to other environments, coastal and river basin areas are subject to the influences of tides, rainfall, and upstream water releases, all of which contribute to flooding.

Traditional flood management systems, which often rely on manual observation and historical data, are not always equipped to respond promptly to these dynamic conditions, especially in the face of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.

Flooding can occur rapidly, with little warning, making it essential to have systems in place that can provide real-time data on water levels, weather conditions, and other relevant parameters in order to protect our infrastructure and populations.

The environmental impact of flooding extends beyond human settlements. Ecosystems like coastal or river forests that can function as natural barriers against storm surges and erosion are also vulnerable to extreme flooding events. 

Therefore, it is crucial for any effective flood management plan to consider the preservation of our essential natural defenses.

IoT’s Potential Role in Flood Monitoring

Rugged IoT devices can be integrated into flood-prone areas or flood defense measures to help improve our understanding of flooding. 

Although the primary advantage of incorporating IoT technology is the use of sensors for early warning systems, the constant and immediate data gathered by IoT sensing nodes can also drive powerful analytics, especially when combined with AI.

IoT sensors can collect data on water levels, precipitation, soil moisture, wind speed, and ocean salinity. 

By analyzing long-term data from these sensor types, we can identify trends that indicate increased or decreased vulnerability to flooding, helping us implement effective measures to mitigate future flood risk.

Moreover, IoT can help safeguard ecosystems crucial for flood management. By deploying IoT sensors in natural landscapes such as forests and grasslands, we can help prevent erosion and flooding in coastal regions, preserving their health and enhancing their natural flood defense abilities, reducing our dependence on artificial barriers and human interventions.

Protecting Ecosystems to Prevent Floods

The benefit of perception technologies in flood prevention is well known in human-made flood defenses, but now smaller and smarter IoT nodes combining innovative sensing, analytics, and communication technologies are displaying new value in enhancing natural flood defenses.

Nordic Semiconductor’s 2023 Connect for Good: Low Power Sustainability Challenge, provides a prime example of this, courtesy of entrant Ryan Kiprotich Cheruiyot.

Protecting Mangroves to Enhance Our Resilience to Flooding

In many coastal areas across the world, mangroves serve as natural barriers, dampening waves and blocking storm surges. 

According to the Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA), mangroves in 59 countries annually protect over 15 million people and save more than $65 billion in property damages.

Mangrove trees also critically capture significant quantities of carbon from the atmosphere and serve as vital habitats for a wide range of fish, molluscs, insects, and birds. However, in many regions, deforestation for development, agriculture, and aquaculture, as well as unmonitored logging, agricultural runoff, industrial waste, oil spills, and diseases all threaten mangrove forests.

Cheruiyot’s Mikoko project featured solar-powered IoT sensor nodes designed to conserve energy in mangrove forests. These IoT devices incorporate a wide range of perception technologies to help improve our understanding of delicate mangrove ecosystems.

Water clarity, levels, and composition are all captured, while environmental data is gathered through humidity, temperature, air pressure, UV light intensity, and gas sensors. 

Furthermore, a microphone captures nearby audio, facilitating the detection of boat engine noise, illegal activities, and potential threats to the ecosystem.

Intelligent edge processing is handled by a TinyML model before vital information is relayed via LTE-M and NB-IoT, allowing for further centralised logging and processing. 

Continuous monitoring of mangrove environmental parameters through real-time data transmission ensures instant alerts and warnings are sent to forest protection services, allowing timely action to save the mangroves. 

Additionally, the collected data contributes to research, deepening our knowledge of these remarkable ecosystems.

By leveraging IoT and TinyML, Cheruiyot’s project demonstrates the potential of low-power, high-impact IoT technology in environmental conservation and how we can hope to prevent floods by maintaining the health of natural barriers.

Critical Flood Management Strategies

As the frequency and intensity of flooding events continue to rise, the need for effective flood management strategies becomes ever more critical. 

IoT technology offers a powerful tool for monitoring environmental conditions, providing early warnings, and allowing us to use potentially vulnerable ecosystems in our flood defenses.

With flood events increasing in occurrence, IoT sensors providing real-time data and AI-driven analytics could help us enhance our ability to predict and respond to floods, minimizing damage and saving lives.