KOCHI: It seems Kochi’s waters are another Rubicon the Romans have crossed! As far-fetched as it may sound, the city corporation depends on a control room in Messina, on the Italian island of Sicily, for flooding alerts in its own backyard.
Sensors installed at five locations in the city are triggered when water levels cross a certain threshold. This is relayed using cloud computing to a control room in the Italian city. Officials there then share the alerts with Kochi authorities, allowing them to adopt corrective action.“The sensors are not a solution to waterlogging in the city.
They are merely devices that help alert authorities, including corporation, district administration, disaster management authority, fire force, KSEB, and other officials, to act to prevent flooding of houses and streets in the city,” a corporation official said. “We have positioned 14 water pumps in areas where waterlogging is an issue. The sensors alert us to the rise in water levels, enabling us to preempt a crisis,” the official added.
“We are devising a system that will enable us to collect data directly from the Messina dashboard. Work has begun on creating an integrated command and control centre and urban observatory for the city,” said mayor M Anilkumar.
Kochi’s ‘flood management’ system is part of the European Union’s (EU) International Urban and Regional Cooperation (IURC) project. Kochi and Messina were identified as twin cities as part of the project.
The water sensors were developed by the computer science department of University of Messina, under the leadership of Dr Antonio Galletta. Funded by the EU, the sensors have been installed in Kochi on an experimental basis. On Thursday, Dr Antonio and Dr Panagiotis Karamanos, head of the IURC project, were in Kochi to observe the functioning of the sensors.