It’s the height of summer in the UK and the country is in the middle of a heatwave, so naturally our thoughts turn to… floods!
Last week we were in North London in a park where the council has been working hard on a natural flood management scheme. They are holding back water in the flood plain area by diverting it through wetland areas and (intentionally) leaky dams – slowing its journey and hopefully preventing or reducing the risk of flood to nearby properties.
In the process they are creating new habitats and enhancing others which will hopefully increase biodiversity.
We are helping by using the Internet of Things to provide objective data on changes in the downstream water level – so the council can analyse the data before and after the new scheme is up and running.
The sensors we are using are Dragino LDDS75 – a LoRaWAN distance sensor. Positioned above the water, it measures the distance from the top of the gully to the water every 20 minutes.
Dad joke: “Where does the council keep its water levels?”
– “In a data lake!”
Joking aside, the council really does store the water level data in its data lake, where the data insights team will be able to compare changes over time.
Getting frequent water level readings opens up the possibility of providing early warning to nearby properties if the water levels start rising rapidly.
We look forward to seeing how the flood management scheme performs over the next few years. It would be good to see whether filtering the water through the wetlands measurably improves the water quality too.