Urban flood alarm system: SmartAlarm

More than half of the world's natural disasters are floods, affecting millions of people each year. More than 3 billion people have been affected by major floods over the last century, including almost 7 million deaths and 441 billion USD in damages (www.em-dat.net). VTT is currently conducting extensive research on urban flooding and related ICT solutions. Key challenges addressed include minimizing damage to people, property and businesses caused by heavy rain flooding; predicting floods and alerting authorities and the public; locating potential flood sites; and determining who should be alerted and informed first and what this information should contain. The first concept and related research prototype of a local early warning system for urban floods caused by heavy rains has been developed by VTT under the Tekes project SmartAlarm (Urban Flood Alarm System).