Topic: OSHW and FOSS4G for an online water valet
Presenter : Yann Chemin
Type: Poster
Malwatu Oya basin in Northwestern Sri Lanka is subject to intense rainfall. Cascade systems of reservoirs, being interconnected are less informed about actual incoming run-off, especially with high intensity rainfall is hitting various part of the watershed.
A first step to support the water management effort of the irrigation department is to intensify the raingauge network, and increase the temporal reporting frequency. A combination of Open Source Hardware (OSHW) and Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) is being used to created a royalty-free, cheap raingauge design, with full control of on-board data collection and statistics. An online connection is then established.
A second step is to bridge the actual reservoir management tools and hydrological tools used to incorporate real time raingauge information as customized on-board the instruments. Some calibration/validation work will be needed to absorb the higher intensity information and its real time update/rerun.
This research explores the means used so far and the challenges ahead, whether on the OSHW, FOSS, FOSS4G, scientific modeling and the human part in making this Open Source vertical integration possible.
