Interoperable infrastructure for flood monitoring: sensor web, grid & cloud

The paper presents an in
ternational multi-disci-
plinary initiative, a Namibia SensorWeb Pilot Project, that was
created as a testbed for evaluati
ng and prototyping key technolo-
gies for rapid acquisition and d
istribution of data products for
decision support systems to monitor
fl
oods. Those key technologies
include SensorWebs, Grids and Computation Clouds. This pilot
project aims at developin
g an operational trans-boundary
fl
ood
management decision support s
ystem for the Southern African
region to provide useful
fl
ood and water-borne disease forecasting
tools for local decisi
on makers. This effort in
tegrates space-based
and ground sensor data along with higher level geospatial data
products to enable risk assessment and ultimately risk maps
related to
fl
ood di
saster management and water-related disease
management. We present an overall architecture of the Pilot
along with components and servic
es being developed. Addition-
ally, case-stu
dies and results achieved so far are discussed. The
presented work is being carried out within GEO 2009–2011 Work
Plan as CEOS WGISS contribution.