New App from UTA Provides Real-Time Flood Issues

As North Texans continue to deal with area flooding following a week of rain, a new app is available to help get users flooding information and help researchers learn more about area flooding.

The research and app — called iSeeFlood — was funded by the National Science Foundation, and developed by researchers at the University of Texas-Arlington, the University of Michigan and University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Dr. D.J. Seo, a UTA civil engineering professor, helped run the program and says it is difficult to predict when and where it will rain, what will be absorbed and what will run off. The idea of the app is to use crowd-sourcing to gather information for researchers to better develop flood maps and predict problems based on current conditions.

"We will see literally thousands of these reports, everywhere," Seo said. "So we will know which areas are flooding, or signs of flooding and use this information in our models to make our predictions much more accurate."

The app asks users to record where they're seeing high water, rising water, and just how bad it is getting. Users are encouraged to provide a picture as well and Geotag the information for researchers.

"So that we know when, and where, we may be under a flooding threat, so we may take action accordingly," Seo said.

The researchers also developed sensors that use sonar to determine if and where water is rising. So far ten sensors have been installed in Grand Prairie and Fort Worth. Ten more sensors will be installed in Dallas, Arlington and Kennedale later this summer.