Early Warning Service for Urban Pluvial Floods for and by Citizens and City Authorities (FloodCitySense)

Duration: 04/17 - 04/20

Early Warning Service for Urban Pluvial Floods for and by Citizens and City Authorities (FloodCitySense) aims to reduce the vulnerability of urban areas to flooding through the development of a citizen-led early warning system. The approach combines participatory platforms for local communities to engage in flood mitigation activities with the use of low cost sensors and web based technologies.

Focusing on three pilot cities in Belgium (Brussels), the Netherlands (Rotterdam) and the UK (Birmingham), this collaborative research project aims to develop a broad evidence base with transferrable lessons for other European cities seeking to strengthen their flood resilience. The project team will actively engage other European cities throughout the duration of the project to maximise potential uptake of findings elsewhere.

Christian Onof (Principal Investigator, Reader in Stochastic Environmental Systems)
Susana Ochoa-Rodriguez (Senior Hydraulic Modeller)
Li-Pen Wang (Research Associate)
Andrew Johnston

  • Collaborative multistakeholder research in (Brussels), the Netherlands (Rotterdam) and the UK (Birmingham).
  • Development of participatory ‘citizen science’ solutions to flood risk using low cost, accessible technologies.
  • Targeted dissemination of findings to other European cities with a flood resilience agenda.