Several entities and new technology are watching the rising water levels in our area
Several entities and new technology are watching the rising water levels in our area
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Several entities and new technology are watching the rising water levels in our area
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Living in an area with many different bodies of water and low-lying terrain, almost all of us have had to deal with the effects of flooding in one form or another, and with the problem only projected to get worse, several groups in our area have come together to tackle the problem in real-time. From Georgia Tech researchers to departments within Chatham County, the city of Savannah, and even a local high school, all of these groups are working to develop the SMART Sea Level Sensors Program. Until now there’s been only one sensor in our region to monitor the sea level — at Fort Pulaski.
But thanks to this unique partnership, the goal is to have more than 100 sensors across the whole coastline. “We’ve deployed about 50 of these water level sensors around Chatham County and they’re all connected in real-time so about every five minutes they wake up take a water measurement and send it to us and it’s collected on one of our servers at Georgia Tech and then available for people to see what’s going,” Dr. Russell Clark, from Georgia Tech, said. And in emergency situations, every second counts. "The purpose of this project is to really give us more data with these really great low-cost, high-reliability sensors just give us hyper-local data so that when we are in an emergency situation — if there’s major flooding or hurricane coming our way — that and we have more real-time data and a lot more of it than different parts of our county that can inform our emergency response," Nick Deffley, the sustainability director for the city of Savannah, said. And you might be surprised to learn they’re not in the water. “What it’s doing is it’s taking a measurement from here down to the water. So we get basically an elevation of the water, and combined with temperature and barometric pressure, it sends all of that up. It’s really the same sensor technology that’s in a modern car in a bumper to tell you you’re too close to the car in front of you so you’re using a similar technology except for pointing it down to see what’s the difference from here to the water,” Clark said. And the sensors themselves are being built and even improved by local Jenkins High School students. “So the students are soldering the boards, they are soldering the sensors together so that they have that hands-on interaction with the project and that really takes it to another level for us,” Tim Cone, from Georgia Tech, said. All of this comes together not only to see the immediate sea level but to even help plan out future infrastructure designs and help build students up along the way, too. To see where all of the sensors are or to get one installed on your property, you can head over to SEALEVELSENSORS.ORG and find out more.
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