Engineers Work On Warning System for Urban Flooding Using Traffic Camerashttps://techxplore.com/news/2019-08-urban-traffic-cameras.htmlIt's the night of Sept. 8, 2014. Over metropolitan Phoenix, a summer monsoon collides with a dying Pacific hurricane. Rain gushes from the skies. Freeway pumps on Interstate 10 fail. Early morning commuters abandon their cars, which simply float away. Interstate 17 and U.S. 60 in Mesa also flood because pumps can't cope with the deluge. City officials close dozens of streets. The mayor of Mesa calls the flooding a "slow-moving disaster." The governor declares a statewide emergency.
... Now, a team of researchers led by Arizona State University faculty is working on a way to warn people about urban flooding.
Called Flood Aware, the idea is to use traffic cameras as eyes on intersections, measuring the observations. That data will feed into models with existing and predicted rainfall and then forecast (or report) flooding.
... The porject will use traffic cameras—ones pointed at curbs and gutters rather than cars passing by—to observe the intersections, and then use image processing algorithms to estimate the depth of the water. Estimating the depth of the water and combining it with hydraulic models of storm water systems will give information about nearby areas.
"The idea is we could take these observations, integrate that data into our existing model along with either observed or forecast rainfall data, so we can then run our model multiple times—rainfall has just happened—feed in those data points where flooding is observed, and then make a probabilistic projection of where flooding is likely to be already occurring besides those points where we don't have cameras and then we can also do that in forecast mode," Garcia said. "Now is our first field season to put some of these ideas into action."
