GIS Case Study
River Flood Early Warning System
A flood early-warning platform for a provincial disaster management agency monitoring a river basin in near real time.
Domain
Flood Early Warning / Disaster Management
Role
Full-Stack GIS Developer
At A Glance
What Makes It Work
Flood sensors reporting live water level, velocity and discharge with status flags
Automatic weather stations feeding nowcast-to-forecast weather surfaces
Historic flood extents for 2015, 2017, 2022 and 2025 with month-by-month playback
Population exposure analysis across settlements and critical infrastructure
Warning that arrives before the water
A provincial disaster management agency monitored a flood-prone river basin through a mix of sensor reports, weather bulletins and historical knowledge held by experienced officers. Each was useful; none were on the same screen. When water levels rose, the questions that mattered, how fast, how far, who is in the way, were answered by phone calls and by memory of what happened last time. The system brings those sources together for early warning: live sensor telemetry, weather from nowcast to forecast, the historical extents of past floods, and the population and infrastructure exposed if this one follows the same path.
Sensors, forecasts, history and exposure on one map
The platform is React with Mapbox GL JS over a Django back end. Flood sensors across the basin report water level, velocity and discharge, each opening a pop-up with current readings and recent trend. Automatic weather stations feed a weather layer switcher spanning nowcast to forecast, and hexbin temperature and rainfall surfaces are driven by a 24-hour timeline so an officer can watch a rainfall band move toward the catchment. Historic flood extents for 2015, 2017, 2022 and 2025 are selectable layers with mapped inundation footprints. Overlaying a past extent on the current sensor picture is the most direct way the agency has to reason about what a rising river will do. The exposure panel breaks down total population, settlements and critical infrastructure within a selected extent, turning a footprint into the numbers an evacuation order needs.
What early warning now looks like
Duty officers watch the sensors rise, compare against the closest historical event, and read the exposure figures for the extent they expect, all before the water reaches the settlements. Warnings go out with numbers attached. The institutional memory that used to sit in a few officers' heads is on the map as historical layers that any officer can use. The agency's confidence in the system rests on the sensor and forecast pipelines being reliable, which is where most of the engineering went. A warning system that shows stale data is more dangerous than no system at all, and the operational discipline around ingestion and freshness carries over from our other data engineering work on monitoring platforms.
Capabilities
Core Functionality
Flood sensor pop-ups showing water level, velocity, discharge, status and full history
Weather layer switcher spanning nowcast and forecast products
Hexbin temperature and rainfall surfaces driven by a 24-hour animated timeline
Historic flood extent layers selectable by year with monthly playback
Exposure panel breaking down total population, settlements, male, female, children, elderly and adults
Infrastructure and hardware layers, towers, health facilities and schools
Alerts, emergency contacts, archives, notifications and site / device management
Technologies
Tools & Stack
Product
From The Working Application
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What do the flood sensors report?
Water level, velocity and discharge at each sensor location, with a pop-up showing current readings and the recent trend. Sensors report on a fixed cadence and the map reflects the latest reading, with the timestamp visible.
How are historical floods used?
Inundation extents for 2015, 2017, 2022 and 2025 are mapped as selectable layers. Overlaying a past extent on the current situation lets officers compare a rising river against what it did previously, and the exposure panel can be run against any historical extent.
What does the exposure panel calculate?
Total population, settlements and critical infrastructure within a selected flood extent, current, forecast or historical. It turns a mapped footprint into the figures needed for warnings and evacuation planning.
Does it include weather forecasts?
Yes. Automatic weather stations feed a layer switcher spanning nowcast to forecast, and hexbin rainfall and temperature surfaces animate over a 24-hour timeline so approaching rainfall bands are visible before they reach the catchment.
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