Monitoring River Levels Using LoRaWAN

Publication date: August 10, 2021 (Document history)

Authorities around the world have the important responsibility of monitoring river and sea levels, so both public institutions and private citizens can be better informed of flood risks. This implementation guide demonstrates how AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN can be used in conjunction with a qualified gateway device from AWS Advanced Technology Partner Laird Connectivity to install a private long range wide-area network (LoRaWAN) capable of collecting environmental monitoring data, such as river levels.

Overview

Both public and private sector organizations play a crucial role in managing the risk to life and property from flooding. To illustrate the size of the task faced by such authorities, Flooding in England: national assessment of flood risk, published by the Environment Agency, identified that one in six properties in England is at risk of flooding. Furthermore, it reported that rising sea levels and increasingly severe and frequent rainstorms caused by climate change mean that the risk of flooding will only increase.

As part of a comprehensive approach, authorities commonly undertake monitoring of river and sea levels at a finite number of fixed monitoring stations, providing both immediate and longer-term profiling of risk from rising water levels. To facilitate even greater geographical coverage, low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN) technologies such as LoRaWAN give organizations additional flexibility to deploy low-cost, low-power sensors without depending on existing power or telecoms infrastructure.

This implementation guide demonstrates how AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN can be leveraged alongside the Laird Connectivity Sentrius RG1xx LoRaWAN Gateway to deploy a private LoRaWAN network capable of collecting environmental sensor readings from a fleet of geographically distributed microcontrollers.

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