Non-contact, low-cost, stage and velocity sensors for monitoring urban streamflow

Half of the world’s population lives in urban watersheds. In order to predict how these watersheds will behave under current and future weather dynamics (e.g. if , how and where flooding would occur due to intense rainfall), we need dense measurements of river stage and river velocity. Current instruments are too expensive to deploy in the quantities needed to provide these dense measurements. A novel low-cost, non contact, autonomous sensor (and associated software) is being developed which can automatically measure river stage and river velocity. The sensor will automatically send data on river stage and velocity to a cloud based server from where the data will be accessible to end users in near real time. In Phase I we will develop our sensor and the associated software and test and validate it. Validation will be done by deploying thirty sensors to an urban watershed and co locating these sensors with existing commercial instrumentation for measuring river stage and velocity. This system will allow state, city and federal agencies to get the required high spatial density data that they need to accurately model urban watersheds at an affordable price point. The same system can also be deployed outside of urban areas.