Open technologies for monitoring systems aimed at disaster risk reduction
Massimiliano Cannata, Yann H. Chemin, Milan Petar Antonovic, Lahiru Wijesinghe, Vivien Deparday · 2016
This research is spearheading the integration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Open Source Hardware (OSHW) in the field of agri-meteorology applications to disaster risk reduction, flood and droughts. A Do-It-Yourself weather station based on OSHW standards has been developed from local sources in Sri Lanka, reporting by SMS to tank/reservoir managers when rainfall is higher than 10mm/h. These weather stations are soon going to be reprogrammed to report to istSOS, a FOSS web-based Sensor-Observation-Service compliant system, which will collate live reporting of rainfall every hour and before if intensities are dimmed worrying for flood risks. This is both a scientific, technological, and practical challenge toward a very low cost real time disaster risk notification system in places where climate, economy and maintenance supports are themselves other challenges.