Flash surface water flooding is a common issue across the catchment. Most Local Authorities maintain a gully asset base that stretches into the ten’s if not hundreds of thousands of gullies and manage a continual clearing and maintenance regime. Despite this, many gullies get congested with silt between maintenance visits and even where clear, can be breached during extreme rain events.
This project installed wireless sensors to observe the water levels within a selection of gullies at 20 sites across 7 highway authorities.
The project used 4 different suppliers, different sensors and deployment approaches to demonstrate how wireless technology can improve councils’ ability to respond just in time to surface water flooding.
Telford & Wrekin Council and Warwickshire County Council contracted supplier North who used the Milesight EM410-RDL radar sensor.
Shropshire and Herefordshire also used the Milesight EM410-RDL sensor but this was provided through CyRIC IOT.
Monmouthshire and Powys used UD Live and their proprietary radar sensor, the Pixel Gully II.
Gloucestershire used Kaarbon Tech and an acoustic sensor provided by AX Sensor.
Each trial environment differed and the deployment approach was adapted to each to provide a full range of installation scenarios. An evaluation of the project is on-going.