A Real-Time Predictive Application of Flooding and SSO in Urban Areas: An Implementation in Boston's Dorchester Neighborhood

Kleinfelder is developing an application (APP) that monitors and forecasts drainage and wastewater system hydraulic conditions by coupling National Weather Service (NWS) weather forecast data with urban sewer and drainage models. The application retrieves weather forecast data from the NWS to simulate and predict flooding and sewer/drainage system hydraulic conditions 48-72 hours in advance of weather for operational planning and emergency response purposes. Utilizing cloud computing services from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the APP predicts flooding areas and system hydraulic conditions and automatically updates every 6 hours as the NWS weather forecast updates every 6 hours. The APP will automatically notify key Operations Personnel and/or emergency responders when risks of flooding and/or sewer overflows are predicted so that appropriate actions may be taken to protect public health and the environment. The APP prediction results (flooding areas) can be georeferenced in a map with high geographic resolution and can be integrated with other mapping services (such as Google Maps or Bing Maps). This paper describes a successful implementation of the APP in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood.