FLOOD TRACKINGFloodNet Tracking System Set for Expansion Across All Five NYC Boroughs

Published 31 January 2023

FloodNet, the first-ever New York City flood-monitoring network, has received $7.2 million in city funding that will greatly increase the number of monitored flood-prone locations from 31 to 500 over the next five years. The network expansion is slated to begin in February.

FloodNet, the first-ever New York City flood-monitoring network, has received $7.2 million in city funding that will greatly increase the number of monitored flood-prone locations from 31 to 500 over the next five years. The network expansion is slated to begin in February.

FloodNet in was developed and tested over the past two and a half years by a group of environmental researchers from Brooklyn College, the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) and NYU Tandon School of Engineering in partnership with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice, the NYC Office of Technology & Innovation, and neighborhood community groups.

In addition to the sensor network, FloodNet also provides a free, mobile-friendly web dashboard that allows New York City residents and other stakeholders to monitor and react to flood threats in real time. Launched on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Ida, the dashboard displays data collected by FloodNet’s expanding system of low-cost, open-source sensors across the city’s five boroughs.

Thirty-one FloodNet sensor devices are currently active in all five boroughs to monitor and collect water-level readings, which are delivered to an interactive map and data visualization platform in real time. The data platform allows users to see the occurrence and depth of flood water at each sensor location. The free-to-use dashboard makes it easy to know where, when, and how quickly flood waters are rising, either from overburdened stormwater drains or coastal seawater surges. The pilot web portal was created in partnership with FieldKit, with funding from the New York State Empire State Development Corporation.

About the Dashboard

·  Displays a rich data set collected by the FloodNet sensors, including the depth and profile of street-level floods over time, which can be of use to community members, city agencies, researchers, emergency responders, journalists, and others.

·  Provides flood data in real time as they are collected, and can alert users to floods as they develop.

·  Includes a searchable map view that allows users to see at a glance which sensors are currently recording floods.

·  Includes historical data, allowing users to explore and understand the frequency and severity of flooding in locations where FloodNet sensors are deployed, in addition to visualizing floods that occurred during specific events. For example, during Tropical Storm Henri (2021), FloodNet sensors deployed in the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn recorded two distinct flood events on the same night separated by an hour during which the water receded. During Ida (2021), sensors recorded three feet of flooding at the intersection of Carroll Street and Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, with flood waters rising quickly, peaking within 20 minutes, creating extremely hazardous conditions. Sensors located in coastal areas (e.g., Hamilton Beach and Rockaway, Queens) recorded two to three feet of flooding during the new moon high tide on December 23, 2022, due to elevated tide levels caused by the co-occurring winter storm.

·  Visualizes regular flooding related to high tide events through data collected by flood sensors deployed in coastal neighborhoods.

The FloodNet project was developed as a collaboration between researchers at the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay (SRIJB) at Brooklyn College, NYU Tandon’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), and the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC), in partnership with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice and the NYC Office of Technology & Innovation and with the financial support of the C2SMART Tier 1 U.S. Department of Transportation University Transportation Center at NYU Tandon, the NYU Marron Institute, and the CUNY Office of Research.