FloodSafe Honduras: Sistema de Alerta Temprana

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Flood Warning System

Motivation for Sistema de Alerta Temprana (SAT)
The flood early warning system, called SAT, is a system for warning local communities of incoming floods within the Rio Aguan basin in Honduras. The idea resulted from the devastation following Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which caused the death of over 5,000 people. Each year, surprise flooding from heavy rainfall and hurricanes causes significant loss of life in the Rio Aguan basin, and this loss of life could be avoided with a reliable warning system.

The SAT will detect flooding by measuring the river level or flow, communicating this information to a central point, processing this information to determine whether an alert is necessary, and issuing an alert if necessary. The system will cover the Rio Aguan basin from Olanchito to Santa Rosa de Aguan, a distance of approximately 110km. Within this region, 25 endangered communities have been identified, but the initial installation plan calls for the protection of just seven communities, via the installation of three sensors and their supporting systems. Communications will be centered initially in Tocoa, 40 km from Olanchito and 70 km from Santa Rosa de Aguan. Initial technical requirements include a cost per community of less than $1000 US. Also, the SAT components must be easy to replicate, not requiring an engineering degree or parts unavailable in Honduras to build an entire system or to add an additional sensor or community. Finally, maintenance must be minimal and also easy for a common Honduran with no engineering experience to perform. Villagers of the downstream endangered communities desire the new warning system, but locals at upstream sensor sites have little personal interest in the system. Therefore, it cannot depend on quick or frequent repair work by people near the sensors, but instead on remote people with many priorities. Minimal requirements for such remote technicians are ideal.

Community Partner in Honduras
The local community partner for MITâs involvement with the SAT is Centro Tecnico San Alonso Rodriguez (CTSAR), a Honduran non-governmental organization (NGO). This NGO identified and selected the communities at the highest risk for flooding and established links with the corresponding local institutions and community groups. CTSAR focuses on development projects with technical applications and places emphasis on maintaining strong relationships with community beneficiaries.

Background of MIT Involvement
The automated early warning system project began in January 2004 as a collaboration between MIT and the Centro Tecnico San Alonso Rodriguez (CTSAR), located in Tocoa, Honduras. Three MIT students traveled to Tocoa as part of a MIT class group examining adapting technologies for developing countries. CTSAR had already been discussing this project and had obtained funding through ECHO, a UN program to aid developing countries preparations for and prevention of disasters. The arrival of the MIT students provided engineers to work on the project with the money.

This initial visit allowed the students to gather information from the communities, CTSAR, COPECO (the government department responsible for disaster relief in Honduras) and SERNA (the government department equivalent to the USGS). They determined that the current system installed by COPECO was unable to handle the requirements of the needed system (see previous sections). This system recruits local volunteers to daily report via radio the river level, measuring using level markings on nearby bridges or similar structures. COPECO employees receive the information at a central office where they combine all measurements to determine which level that area is at from a possible three options, green, yellow and red. The final level of red will trigger evacuations and other preventative measures, but can only be triggered by municipal and national directors, requiring large amounts of communication before any alert is issued. In addition to this system, SERNA gathers other river level information from flow meter sensors installed by the USGS. However, these sensors are not maintained and often break down, resulting in no data or in data that is unreliable.

With this data, the three students returned to MIT for the Spring semester. Two joined the Design that Matters class offered that semester and the project gained one more member as well as a mentor from that class. The semester was spent researching, planning and designing. Funds were raised by winning the MIT IDEAS competition. In the summer and fall of 2004, Elizabeth Basha worked individually on the project, and she focused on sensor prototypes and procurement of radios. In October 2004, Elizabeth traveled to Tocoa and installed a data collection system. This system, consisting of a pressure sensor within a watertight box, was bolted to the base of the Olanchito bridge and attached at the top of the bridge to a HOBO external data collector with rechargeable batteries. Batteries are changed and data is downloaded weekly.