“IoT Real-Time Flood Monitoring System using Arduino with SMS Notification”

Haidie L. Catayoc Leumas C. Jacinto Reybert Lloyd G. Qubing

Legacy College of Compostela Legacy College of Compostela Legacy College of
Compostela
P-8 Poblacion, Compostela, P-2 Poblacion, Compostela, P-10B Andap, New Bataan
Davao de Oro Davao de Oro Davao de Oro
+639752639147 +639307493998 +639073626364
catayochaidie@gmail.com leujacinto@gmail.com
reybertlloyd11@gmail.com

Janette M. Claro, MIT

Legacy College of Compostela
Dagohoy St., Poblacion
Compostela Valley Province
+639289306535
safiyahjhanelle@gmail.com

1. INTRODUCTION property, trees and many more heavy items.

Categories and Subject Description
Adruino Board, GSM Module, Arduino
Platform IDE
Keywords
Flood Monitoring, Water Level Monitoring,
IoT, Arduino
General Terms
Machine Device
1.1 Project Context
Flood occurs when water overflows
from the river, lake or from heavy rainfall
and it can happen at any time of the year.
Flooding can be very dangerous, when
floods happen in an area that people live, the
water carries along objects like houses, cars,
furniture and even people. It can wipe away
[1]
A Water Level Indicator is used to
detect and indicate the water level in an
overhead tank or any other water container.
[2]
Barangay Poblacion with 16 puroks
located at Compostela, Davao de Oro,
Philippines is one of the places with high-
risk in flood, results to damages of
properties. It is one of the barangays in
municipalities with many flood-prone areas
or low lying areas, such as in purok 1, 5, 8,
9, 13, and 15. Furthermore, it has the highest
population exposed to flooding incidence
with 10,156 individuals or constitutes
around 32.92% of its estimated total
population located near Agusan River. The

1
total estimated population here in Barangay experienced extreme rainfall and would
Poblacion is 30,855, and the estimated always keep in touch with the MDRRMO to
residential is 96.8649. know more accurate weather forecast
Previously the MDRRMO was called updates.
MDCC (Municipal Disaster Coordinating In this research, the proponents
Council), and it was created by Republic Act identified the problems being encountered
10121 in May 2010, and it responds to the by the Local MDRRMO, such as lack of a
disaster. After 2010 the MDCC changed into timely efficient device to trigger flood alert
MDRRMO (Municipal Disaster Risk to the community because the MDRRMO
Reduction Management Office) with the monitors the flood and water level by only
MDRRMO, Chairperson Hon. Lema P. using an indigenous knowledge system: a
Bolo, CPA and LDRRMO Crison P. Panio, local and community based manned
RMT. monitoring, flood marker, and a manual
In the year of 1964, according to the siren to trigger alert to the affected area.
old-age local in the beautiful Municipality of Still, not all puroks have sirens.
Compostela, experienced the first deep Unfortunately, there's only one siren
shoulder level flood in town. The residents installed beside the bridge in purok 5, and
used an improvised canoe to surpass the besides, individuals are busy with the daily
flood at the same time as Typhoon Sendong routine; thus, monitoring activity cannot be
in 2011. the priority. These are the reasons why
Last December 04 of 2012, a communities are blinded by the current
typhoon named Pablo terrified and struck status of the nearby river watershed. The
the peaceful town. It was the second and unawareness led to the overflow of the river
most horrible experience suffered by the waterway's watercourses and the subsequent
resident of Compostela. inundation of various areas, causing
It was unexpected, and no one saw extensive damage to properties and human
that it would devastate the people and life.
brought sorrow: all the livelihoods, some of The MDRRMO lacks accessibility of
the houses, and even the lives of people had the information and managed to get data
been all vanished in a glimpse of an eye. It about the rain events such as Monsoon,
brought trauma and panic once the resident Typhoon, Hurricane, Tropical cyclone,

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Heavy rainfalls, and localized thunderstorm
by the system installed to the municipality
by the PAGASA for weather forecasting
purposes and give early notice to the
MDRRMO 2 to 3 days before the rain
events. Still, there’s not much to do in terms
of the flood; MDRRMO relies on the verbal
communication between the barangay
officials and the community to get
information about the flood status.
Moreover, the MDRRMO cannot efficiently
use information technologies to discover and
manage information inside the workstations.
The MDRRMO is experiencing
delays in producing timely statistical reports
because MDRRMO processes information
by first observing the affected flooded areas.
Its observation would be processed and
forwarded to the agency responsible for
collecting the data. After that, it would
undergo compiling all the gathered data to
the produced statistical report.
This study developed IoT Real-Time
Flood Monitoring System using Arduino
with SMS Notification; it sends alert in the
form of alarm to the community whenever
the device detects the rising water level in
the river, drainage, and roads in real-time.
1.2 Purpose and Description
This study aims to develop IoT Real-
Time Flood Monitoring System using
Arduino with SMS Notification, which is
appropriate to this research endeavor to
address the problem by creating a system
that would help the Local MDRRMO and its
16 puroks of Compostela; and the
MDRRMO can monitor the water level of
the flood-prone areas in Poblacion,
Compostela through the dashboard. The
proposed system will primarily be installed
in Maputi creek, Old Batutu creek, and
Cambaong creek, connected to the three
rivers in Compostela, Davao de Oro, the
Agusan River, Batutu River, and Ngan
River. The system will notify the command
center and all its residents to be aware of the
creek's real situation. The system will give
three different signals to the public as to
what level of alarm according to water
current level: color yellow means it is in
monitoring condition; the color orange is on
alerting state and might conduct pre-
evacuation; and the color red is in a severe
form which means significant emergency
and extreme red awareness. There is a
mandatory evacuation for that and needs a
full emergency response.
1.3 Objectives
1.3.1 General Objectives
The study's general objectives are to
develop and design an IoT real-time flood
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monitoring system using Arduino with SMS
notification that will detect flood
automatically and send data to the Local
MDRRMO using an Arduino.
1.3.2 Specific Objectives
The study aims to develop a system
that will;
 Design a circuit and create a
programming code using the
Arduino IDE.
 Detect the current level of the flood
where the system sensor will be
divided into three.
 Early warn residents of Barangay
Poblacion, Compostela, Davao de
Oro about the flood water level using
warning alert (siren) that has three
levels.
 Produce timely statistical reports.
 Automatically send data to the local
officials about the status of the flood.
 The local officials will be more
capable of accessing information
about the flood in the workstations.
1.4 Scope and Limitation
The main scope of the study is to
create a system that would detect the flood.
The system observes various natural factors,
including digital humidity temperature
sensor, water level sensor, flow level sensor,
and ultrasonic sensor. It consists of different
sensors that collect data for individual
parameters.
The system has two different user the
Super Admin and the Barangay but super
admin has the full control of the system the
Super admin can access the system to add,
update, and delete information from puroks
or barangays also can access dashboard and
heat map and the barangay can only view
the dashboard and heat map.
The system also has a GSM module
that will send an alert message to Admin and
barangay officials. All sensors are connected
to Arduino UNO, which processes all the
data and functionality. Also, it has a sound
alarm to alert the community.
Furthermore, the system has Wi-Fi
feature, which is useful to access the system
and its data over IoT gateway. IoT is to
provide the webserver connectivity to
demonstrate the display of the GUI of the
course online, and archive that data, and
create statistical charts/reports.
The system has a dashboard that can
view the Heat Map of the flooding area and
check the flood's status.
The simulation of flooding will test
the functionality of the system. The results
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provided the objectives of the course and
satisfied the needs of the Local MDRRMO
and community.
On the other hand, IoT Real-Time
Flood Monitoring System using Arduino
with SMS Notification limits its functions
and feature;
 It cannot accessed offline,
 It cannot cater send SMS alert direct
to the community, it will send only
SMS to admin and barangays.
 It cannot implemented in android
base,
 It cannot measure the depth of
water.
2.0 REVIEW OF RELATED
LITERATURE AND STUDIES
2.1 REVIEW OF RELATED
LITERATURE
2.1.1 Flood
The floods are the most persistent
type of natural disaster and occur when an
overflow of water submerges usually dry
land. Floods are typically caused by heavy
rainfall, typhoon, and storm surge from a
tropical cyclone or tsunami in coastal areas,
and standing flood waters can also spread
infectious diseases, contain chemical
hazards, and cause injuries. Each year,
flooding causes more deaths than any other
hazard related to thunderstorms. [3]
2.1.2 Internet of things (IoT)
The Internet of things (IoT)
describes the network of physical objects
“things” that are embedded with sensors,
software, and other technologies to connect
and exchange data with other devices and
systems over the Internet. IoT devices can
be used in many ways; it can monitor and
control the mechanical, electrical, and
electronic systems used in various devices
like sensors, appliances, home automation,
and building automation systems. The
person or business possibilities are endless.
[4]
2.1.3 Water Level
The Water Level is any device
utilizing the surface of liquid water to detect
the level of substances that can flow, used to
determine the apparent inclination of an
object or body, and it can be more accurate
over long distances and works without
a sightline, such as around corners. It is
based on a microcontroller and an ultrasonic
sensor to measure liquids' level and volume
without any contact. [5] 
2.1.4 Arduino
The Arduino is an open-source
platform used for building electronics
projects. Arduino consists of both a physical
programmable circuit board (usually
referred to as a microcontroller) and a piece
5
of software, or IDE (Integrated
Development Environment) that runs on
your computer, used to write and upload
computer code to the physical board. The
Arduino hardware and software was
designed for artists, designers, hobbyists,
hackers, newbies, and anyone interested in
creating interactive objects or environments.
Arduino can interact with buttons, LEDs,
motors, speakers, GPS units, sensors,
cameras, the internet, and even your smart-
phone or your TV appliances, there are so
many ways you can use Arduino. [6]
2.2 REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES
2.2.1 According to Azid, Chand, Jacquier,
Prasad, Raghuwaiya and Sharma (2015)
The SMS Based Flood Monitoring
and Early Warning System demonstrates
the design process, implementation, and
experimental verification of an SMS based
Flood Monitoring and Early Warning
system with tools such as credit top-up and
storing contact numbers that will be done
via SMS. The system provides timely
information and alerts at-risk or threatened
populace and relevant authorities using SMS
when the water level surpasses the user-
defined threshold value. The simple yet
effective warning system is deemed one of
the fastest and most effective methods of
alerting the relevant authorities and
vulnerable residents. [7]
2.2.2 According to Chang (2006)
The flood monitoring network relies
on a small wireless sensor platform, called
MICA (Crossbow Technology, 2007). This
device has a quite low-speed CPU with too
modest power requirements, i.e., it
consumes only 54mW during active
operation, allowing extended periods of
operation with small batteries. However,
with such a short power, the device has
some limitations on processing ability to
provide complex functionalities, such as on-
site data processing for flood prediction and
networking coverage area. [8]
2.2.3 According to JG Natividad and JM
Mendez
A real-time flood monitoring system
and early warning system in the northern
portion of Cagayan River's Municipalities,
the ultrasonic sensing techniques have
become mature and widely used in various
fields of engineering and basic science.
This study focuses only on the water level
detection and early warning system that
alerts concern agencies and individuals for a
potential flood event. Furthermore, an
inquiry system is also included in this study
to become more interactive wherein
individuals in the community could inquire
6
about the actual water level and status of the The Warning systems are often
desired area or location affected by flood entrusted with issuing warnings at risk of
thru the SMS keyword. The study aims to tragedy; these systems generally consist of a
help citizens to be prepared and hydrological model, supported by
knowledgeable whenever there is a flood. meteorological data obtained by monitoring,
This work's novelty falls under the visual observation, and weather
utilization of the Arduino, ultrasonic forecasting3. Natural phenomena, which
sensors, GSM module, web-monitoring, and affect regions and negatively affect local
SMS early warning system in helping development, causing financial losses, can
stakeholders mitigate casualties related to be monitored using different devices, such
the flood. Indeed, it is relevant and essential as sensors, satellites, and seismographs. To
as per the needs of the community's safety minimize such damages, researchers have
and welfare. [9] developed projects based on geographic
2.2.4 According to Abubakr Rahmtalla information of volunteers (VGI), where
Abdalla Mohmmed information is made available on the Internet
A real-time wireless flood by volunteers who play the role of
monitoring system by using the concept of ”sensors,” allowing the perception and
ultrasonic waves, everything in modern interpretation of this information, thus,
human life has undergone rapid being capable of notifying other people 8.
development. This development is supported Unlike the VGI methodology, the present
by the advance of electronics and work is based on electronic components that
information technology, so we have built a monitor the rivers and weather forecasting
system that automatically senses the water systems. [11]
level at a river and then sends these values
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